Exos aren’t inherently bad, I believe it is always going to be down to the specific model number as in their latest drive stat blog for q3, one model of 14tb exo had a ~6% failure rate, while the other had ~1.3% failure rate.

If you’re willing to shuck seagate externals, there is a one from costco. Supposedly seagate is currently using their exos line in their more recently manufactured products. The only downside would be the 1 year warranty.

https://www.costco.com/seagate-14tb-expansion-desktop-hard-drive.product.4000203297.html

Don’t these have the x14 exos?