Buying an External SSD & Avoiding Failure - What to Consider

After already buying one of those small and sexy (orange and black) SanDisk drives and it failing so therefore losing a lot of important files, I am obviously extremely wary about what to do next because I don't want to buy yet another new SSD drive that will end up doing the same... or buying several drives which may all fail over time.

Everyone's files are important - mine are going to be used for storing (and using until it's time to shelve the SSD) Da Vinci Resolve, Logic and GarageBand files, which means original music and footage that I will never wish to lose, and that's why I am posting this.

✅ What I need - I am looking for a failsafe solution to backing up my work on SSD drives that will mount, load and operate after being shelved for long periods of time, and I am also looking for the same that won't fail during regular daily operation like the SanDisk did (it wasn't anywhere near close to being shelved).

I currently use a 2TB iCloud account, but I loathe to pay Apple's current pricing of £8.99 per month, and also because it will be slow when using the aforementioned files - I need the files to be on a local SSD drive for safekeeping and for using / working with - speed issues are important, and therefore online storage won't be fast enough. But, ultimately, I want to get around Apple's cost issues and to have SSDs here at home.

SSD drives are fairly new to the market, which means that nobody really knows for certain what their lifespan is, but I have been aware for many years that the old mechanical drives do eventually fail for various reasons.

So, what to do when buying an SSD? Which is the best? I have been going around in circles reading endless websites, some of which have links to Amazon for everything they discuss, and therefore I am quite cynical about their "top 10 best" list because it's all about affiliate links and commissions.

Do SSDs fail if they are not used after a certain amount of time? This concerns me. Losing my data concerns me. Everyone is concerned about this issue.

Some user reviews have scared me, hence this post, because they have lost data. One person said that the company had a warranty on the external SSD - great! - but it charged the customer to recover their data. Say what now?!

😂 How funny, instead of typing "external", I made a typo that said "eternal", and that is exactly what I want, an SSD with an eternal lifespan, but I know that probably doesn't yet exist.

I was about to buy a 4TB drive, but thought I would post in here first to see if anyone has any alternative suggestions.

If you are a photographer, videographer, musician or designer - or anyone (non-creative) who feels the way I do about protecting work long into the future - then please do let me know of your recommendations. How do you work and store files? What issues have you experienced? What helps you to sleep at night knowing that you have done your best to protect your work?

I would hate to buy an SSD, which would eventually get stored away for many years, but it fails when attempting to use it in the future. Crystal ball, anyone?

🤯 My work... the drive won't open! My work! ...it's all gone! ...This is what I wish to avoid. Don't we all?

Thanks in advance :)