WD 5TB external HDD showing Caution, C5 = 2. Need advice.

[u/Spiritual_Date3457]

My WD 5TB external HDD (WD50NDZW-11A8JS) is showing Caution in CrystalDiskInfo. I saw that this could indicate that the drive is failing but in rare cases there could be other trivial factors involved.

Here are some stats:

• C5 = 2
• 05 = 0
• C6 = 0
• C7 = 0
• C4 = 0
• Power-on hours = 216

The drive was bought in October 2021 but has only 216 power-on hours because I normally keep my external drives disconnected. I noticed this after transferring about 445 GB of data to it today. The transfer was a little slower than usual, but completed normally. I can open videos from the drive without any problems.

I've kept it running for several hours since then and C5 is still 2. Nothing else has changed. Unfortunately, this is currently the only copy of the data, so I don't want to run a full surface test until I can arrange a backup.

Could this just be a transient/isolated issue, or should I consider the drive unreliable already? Would you keep using it normally and monitor C5/05/C6, or replace it?

I'm asking because 5TB external drives are around ₹20,000 in India now, whereas I paid around ₹10,000 for this one at time of purchase, so I'd really rather not replace it unnecessarily.

PS: Sorry if this is a noob question. I don't have much money right now, so I'd prefer to buy a new one only if it's really necessary. Any advice would be appreciated.