ZorinOS used to send anonymous pings and the user did not had the option to opt out. https://zorin.com/legal/privacy/before-31-may-2018/ Seems now its an opt in service.

Tried it when I was starting out. But I may have read somewhere that it uses telemetry. So uninstalled later.

I believe I was on PopOS then. Now I am on EndeavorOS.

I was having problems with NTFS HDDs when I was dual booting. Needing to get into windows for solving them. Then I ditched Windows, reformatted my drives to EXT4 and never looked back.

But now I am using EXT4 with LUKS for encryption.

NTFS reads/writes fine on Linux. But if anything goes wrong then you might need a utility to fix it (Mostly caused by sudden unplugging). If you have the option, I would suggest you format and the media drive in EXT4. Mind you, EXT4 can only be read by Linux systems.