Few Questions about Primal & Aether Data Centers

There doesn't seem to be a dedicated forum for Data Centers so I'm just gonna post this here :<

I absolutely do not like Crystal so I'm considering making an alt on either Aether or Primal (and eventually making it my main) and I have a couple questions. Mostly regarding Primal since I know nothing about it. I'd like to be 100% sure about my next DC because wow transfers are expensive x.x

1. Is Aether significantly more populated than Primal taking in to account the whole DC, or are they around the same? I notice Primal has 3 preferred servers but Aether has none.

2. Does Primal have a good-sized raiding community?

3. Anybody from Famfrit, Exodus, and Lamia able to say if the populations are low or average? They're preferred so doesn't that mean they're lower pop than other servers?

I was on Famfrit for many years..from day 1 before moving to Spriggan(on my main). It was once a pretty low pop server, but Shadowbringers brought it to life. Saw bunches of people like everywhere, even in remote places.

Aether and Primal pop is around the same, the only reason why Primal has preferred servers is because it stayed on near full congested lockdown for most of Shadowbringers release, whereas Aether went standard much earlier.

Raid clears are also similar, but Aether is slightly ahead by single digit percents, mostly because of Gilgamesh.