You’re exactly right, you gotta get devices with good USB-to-SATA chipsets, and you gotta keep them cool.
I’ve been using a mix of WD Elements, WD MyBook and StarTech/Vantec enclosures (ASM1351). I’ve had to cool all the chipsets on WD because they like bolt the PCBs straight to the drive so it heats up from it.
From all my testing I’ve discovered that:
ASM1351 and ASM235CM are generally problem-free, but the former needs passive cooling if close to a disk. A small heatsink adhered with standard double-sided heat conductive tape is good enough.
Host controllers matter too. Intel is generally problem-free. So is VIA. AMD has some issues on the CPU side on some models which are still not fully solved.
I like this box in particular because it uses a very straightforward design. It’s got 4x ASM235CM with cooling connected to a VIA hub. It’s got a built-in power supply, fan, it even comes with good cables. It fixes a lot of the system variables to known good values. You’re left with connecting it to a good USB host controller.