ask yourself how oftend do you need the features that zfs or btrfs brings over ext3/4 or vfat?

that's how i decided to use ntfs for shared windows/linux volumes; zfs & btrfs was awesome, but i realized that i needed their features less often in my lifetime than i have fingers on my hand.

Don't try and put Windows and Linux on the same filesystem. It will just lead to pain. Use whatever you want for Linux, and ntfs for windows.

The external drive should be fat or ntfs. There's an ext driver for windows, and it works, but I trust the Linux drivers for Windows filesystems more.

Also, this post is hard to read. Extra formatting is not a substitute for readability.

use ntfs for stuff you need to work on both win and linux. windows sucks and doesn't work well with anything else. avoid exfat/fat32.