What if I remove the hard drive?

So I bought an external hard drive for my ps4 and I loaded 3 games directly onto this hard drive. But what happens if I remove the hard drive? Will the data be deleted? Or are they saved on it and remain intact if I remove the hard drive?

That will of course be retained!

Why would external hard drives be good if data were deleted after removal?

If you remove the hard drive you can no longer play any games that are on it until you reinsert the hard drive. And you shouldn't just pull off the hard drive but deactivate it manually in the settings beforehand

So if you remove the hard drive you can only play the games again when you download them to your ps4, but don't worry, the game statuses will remain

Thanks for the answer. But what happens if the hard drive breaks now?