does your external HDD over heat

Hard drives are moving very quickly and will generate heat. However there is nothing wrong with it. The best thing you can do is buy a new one that has better cooling or have something cool or a fan near it.

My external hard drives get pretty hot when transferring stuff for extended amount of times, but never overheat.

I have a WD 1TB external as well. I don't have any overheating problems, even after transferring 400GB to it at once. I have even used it for hosting virtual machines, where the reads and writes are more random, and haven't had any problems with it.

define OVERHEATING. as overheating would make the drive no longer work. I have over 10 externals drives between all the computers and gear here. The feel very warm to the touch, and I have a few that would be 120F which is normal operating temperature.

7200RPM drives run much hotter than 5400, or GREEN drives. A green drive will spin down to 3000rpm or slower to conserve power when idle. Whereas a BLACK/BLUE version will run at full speed when the power is on. Most external cases are plastic with metal paint if even any metal, bad to remove heat, where as a metal case, the case becomes a heat sink. Best to have a metal case but also if your house is 80F or 90f indoor during the summer a hard drive and other electronics will heat up faster and run hotter.

A few solutions that work is to put the hard drives in a metal box, put a small fan to move air around, or even using a heat sink (kinda ugly looking).

What you should do it read the docs and specs under operating temperature and measure your hard drives heat when you think its really running hot, is it really too hot or not ? cant find the docs they would be on the manufactures website as well.

cheers

well of course you have to wait until 3 mins after it gets hot. Once you waited atleast 3 mins. Now you can stir and eat. Instant cup o noodles.lol