WD Elements compatible?

One thing I have learned a long time ago, long after the money is spent you don't recall how much you paid for the product, what you remember is how satisfied you are with the product.

Personally I do not like WD products as I find the build quality inferior and they tend to have a shorter life span, therefore they end up costing more due to replacement costs.

If you cannot afford the Macsales.com product now, please save up a little longer.

Other SSDs I’d suggest looking at are LaCie drives, such as a LaCie Mobile SSD Secure USB-C Drive - Apple or a LaCie Rugged SSD Pro External Drive with Thunderbolt 3 - Apple.

I’ve never had any failures with LaCie. The only issue I’ve had was a faulty USB cable which developed with over with 4 years of usage. As far as OWC is concerned, it rubs me the wrong way that OWC is now shipping their drives with trial versions of junk backup, anti-virus, and cleaning software, which is certainly not needed and simply causes issues for your Mac.

Just my opinion.

Jack

OWC Envoy Pro SX - Thunderbolt Bus-Powered Portable SSD (macsales.com) is what I'd use if I had an M1 Mac and wanted the best performance and ease of compatibility.