How can a disk drive cause Manjaro to freeze?
If the internal structures of the chosen file system get corrupted - the disk will exhibit similar behaviour to what you describe.
You should ensure the systems cache has been flushed to disk before removing a storage device to avoid corrupting the file system - the sync command does exactly that.
I suggest you check if your system has the package udev-usb-sync installed.
The package serves the function of fine tuning buffers and write cache, to avoid file system corruption on removable devices when cache has not yet been fully synced. See → [INFO] New package - udev-usb-sync for more info.