I'm planning to build a new PC for dual booting with Linux on one drive and Windows on another. Traditionally, I keep my data on a separate drive from the OS, so I'm looking at needing three drives in total.
Since M.2 drives are faster, I'm wondering if I should go for a motherboard that has three M.2 slots. I might also consider either putting my data on the same drive as one of the OS drives or using a SATA SSD for storage. I really want to move my existing M.2 data drive from my old PC to the new one. I'm aiming for a mid-range PC, something fast that will serve me well for about 10 years, but it's definitely not for gaming.
2 Answers
Going for a full ATX motherboard sounds like a smart move! You can always use PCIe slots for your data drive, plus adapters are super affordable these days.
Why not just partition one drive for both operating systems? That way, it would essentially be like having two SSDs on the same fast drive. You would save money and still maintain great performance. Plus, with smooth PCIe lanes to the CPU, it's a solid option.
I prefer having a smooth dual boot experience without a boot menu. Like in this video: [https://youtu.be/KWVte9WGxGE?si=twOoWpz1e5CV3bHU](https://youtu.be/KWVte9WGxGE?si=twOoWpz1e5CV3bHU) It really convinced me to go this route. My main questions still revolve around the best placement for my data and M.2 slots.