A hardware wallet is only a tool that can be used to produce addresses and sign transactions. It is never a substitute for physical storage of your seed. That must be done, always, without the hardware wallet. They go bad all the time, they are not safe for long term storage.

As for how you hold your keys for usage, in addition to your keys stamped in steel, Ledger is not bad. I prefer Cold Card of all the HW wallets I've tried.