Partitioning an SSD for dual boot—are there disadvantages?

[DoritosDestroyer]

Hey guys, long-time lurker here.

 

I'm in the process of building a new gaming rig, and due to the nature of my work (I work for a fast-paced AI firm as their Web Developer/Digital Prod Manager) I spend a lot of time sitting behind a computer screen for non-gaming reasons. I've found that in recent months my interest in PC gaming has steadily declined, which I'm attributing to the fact that every time I wake my rig I'm reminded of work (due to MS Teams always being open, the files and folders littering my desktop, etc.). I like what I do, but I need more of an escape from reality when it's time to play.

 

So, my first thought is to partition my boot drive and dual boot Windows—one install for work, another for play. Is there a downside to partitioning a boot SSD? I'm not sure how this might affect performance. Would it be better if I simply had two separate boot drives? Also, because it's been 10 years since I had a dual boot system (mac book pro with windows installed) - can you access other SSDs or HDDs from BOTH Windows instances?

 

All in all, I'm just wondering if this is potentially a very bad idea. Thanks!

[WildW_UK]

If you install both on the same drive you need some kind of boot menu to select which one to start - Windows or Linux will do this for you though. If you boot from separate drives you need to select which drive to boot from, such as spamming F11/etc when you turn your computer on to get the bios boot menu.

 

For me the real benefit of separate drives is when you change your mind later or want to reinstall one of the OS - it's much easier if they're on separate drives that don't know about each other.at boot time. If they're two partitions on the same drive, good luck reinstalling one without breaking the other.

[DoritosDestroyer]

Thanks for the insight. Do you find it troublesome or tedious having to boot into BIOS every time you need to change your boot drive? Also, if I have a separate HDD for applications, can that drive be shared between both Operating systems? As in, if I install Adobe Creative Suite on this 3rd drive, will those applications be accessible from both boot discs?