One can comfortably use NTFS to read and write files on modern Linux distributions, but NTFS in general is not very suitable for running applications on or using for long-term usage between a dual-boot. Windows can and will often lock up NTFS partitions whenever it decides to hibernate rather than shutdown or sometimes suspend. NTFS while not being the greatest FS in general will also have worse performance on Linux than Windows. You can totally keep data stores on a Linux system, though you won't be able to make use of many of the advanced features some Linux/BSD-oriented filesystems offer. You can totally keep your drives as they are now, though if you intend to make a full switch you should consider migrating your drives' data over to more Linux-oriented filesystems (be it Btrfs, Xfs, or Ext4 is your choice depending on the features you want). In short, NTFS works but lacks a lot of features and performance that a more suitable filesystem would offer.

NTFS-3G on Linux is very stable, and I'd recommend sticking to that, although I'd avoid the newer NTFS3 driver.

But if you really want to convert, and it's data that you don't mind loosing, ntfs2btrfs can convert NTFS partitions to BTRFS, and it's available in most distros' repositories.

I have one SSD which I use as a data drive between both Linux and Windows. I used to run Steam games from it, but there were some small problems sometimes, so nowadays I just use it as a storage.

Generally it works just fine, but sometimes Windows does something weird with it especially when running updates, so that Linux can't mount it. During those times I just have to boot to Windows desktop and then come back to Linux and it usually mounts again. If you totally get rid of Windows, I don't think this will happen to you though.

It worked fine last time I used it. For external drives, not the OS please

Also have a look at UDF and exFAT.

Also, there are some things that supposedly don't work correctly when you have your Steam games on NTFS. So watch out for that. Google should know more.

I've had good experiences but you milage could always very. Just follow good backup practices and you'll be fine.

I've used the old 'ntfs' driver that supposedly can't write to... write files ranging from 100,000+ small files in folders to individual 200+ GiB files on NTFS partitions. It works pretty well and I have used it for video editing (few huge files), software development (many tiny files), Unreal Engine + Unity, Linux Gaming w/Steam and more. Rock solid.

After hearing that the 'ntfs' driver is supposed to be read-only, I switched to 'ntfs3' instead of using 'ntfs3g' (~~same code, but compiled into the kernel instead of running outside via 'fuse'~~). From that point onwards, I've had major file system corruption nearly every day:

• Copying files into folders suddenly made 90% of other files in the folder disappear. Could be fixed by copying about 1000 random files into the folder and deleting them, then the missing files would come back into existence.
• Files that suddenly go bad. Can't be written to, moved or anything. Often happened in software development when compiling my project, suddenly the intermediate build directory was bust due to undeletable files.
• Folders that suddenly contain themselves or one of their parent folders as sub-folders.
• Folders that contain a specific file infinity times. This way, I found out that even a harmless file manager like KDE's Dolphin can become a behemoth that eats 100+ GiB of RAM and keeps trying to read the "list" of files in a directory without limit.

Personally, I'll never use 'ntfs3' for serious work again. But 'ntfs3g' is generally considered very stable, maybe my issues are specific to 'ntfs3' or my RAID setup (weird nested mdraid thanks to Intel) is to blame.

My final 'fix' was to move everything to ext4 and buy Paragon's $20 ext4 drivers for the dual boot Windows install. It's only seeing any use once every 2 months. Sadly, these drivers are case sensitive even on Windows, rendering Bethesda games unplayable when installed on those partitions, for example.

My thought process was basically the same as yours, and what I did was to get a nvme ssd, a usb to nvme adapter (because my mobo only had 1 m2 slot and that was occupied), and install endeavour there. It fails sometimes at launch because being connected through USB is not so reliable, but whatever, restart once or twice and it works.

Anyway, I have all my drives mounted (the windows C drive, the extra ssd and the extra big hdd) without issues, all ntfs, games installed in the ntfs drive work flawlessly, no need to reinstall thanks to proton lol. I read, write, and interact with those drives without much though on the fact that they are ntfs.

In terms of plug and play, using KDE Plasma, trying to mount USB NTFS drives with Dolphin fails because udisks2 needs a new release with an NTFS patch so you'll need to mount those using the terminal (and possibly a umask argument that I can't remember off the top of my head if you want r/w access instead of read-only). Internal drives that are NTFS worked by clicking on them with no extra steps required surprisingly. This was with a newer kernel that has the ntfs3 driver and not using ntfs-3g fuse driver which also 'just works' but is slower.