alkemyst
No Lifer
I've had good success with Paragon. I wish it were free (and there are free alternatives), but they are a commercial company and keep their software up-to-date to keep customers happy, so I roll with it. I work with a lot of NTFS drives so it was worth it for me.
With that said, always backup your stuff! Data corruption can happen anywhere. I've had more than one friend lose years worth of their children's photos because they didn't have a backup system.
I lost my data going back to 199x installing windows 8. Microsoft was on my PC remotely for two weeks trying to figure out what went wrong. Lost my emails, pics, videos, white papers, and more.
I run my MBP with Parallels, it's totally stable. I am still on windows 7 and snow leopard on it though.
Upgraded to 8.1 on my main PC and even more issues with things. Had to go Chrome and Firefox to make most sites work now.
You can be screwed no matter what. Apple wants to make sure their products perform.