How safe are private trackers without a VPN?

YMMV. Authentication and duplicate account access issues can arise

Transmission remote is the best piece of windows software. Gives me a Gui to interface with my seed box so I don’t have to log in and upload torrent files or paste links

Do you calculate it from total amount of useful data downloaded? The problem is SSH works well for shell access, but has too much overhead when transferring large files. When I switched from SFTP to FTPS I’ve noticed something like 30% increase in useful data downloaded.

Simply put - both are capable of maxing out your internet connection, but normally FTPS will download more useful data in the same time.