If you want to access the windows drive from Linux, make sure to disable 'fast boot' and hibernation.

Also, Linux prefers the system clock to be set to UTC and Windows will always reset it to local unless you set the realtimeisuniversal registry dword.

https://windowsregistryreference.miraheze.org/wiki/RealTimeIsUniversal

Yes, I would get a 500 GB drive for that, at least.

You will be using separate partitions anyway, since the OSs want completely different file systems. Where you keep new and old files is up to you.

Linux is very space efficient, even distributions like good old Slackware, where you are meant to install the whole repository as a whole hog setup is a few GBs max.

Also, Linux embraces the old UNIX philophy of 'everything is a file and interchangeable' so you don't have to worry about space too much right now.

Later on, if you're more confident, more lived in and perhaps have more budget for storage (not saying you're poor, even a billionaire could set himself a budget for 'fun stuff' that is very tight) ...

At that point you can buy more storage, and flat out map entire partitions to directories (aka, mounting).

So, let's say it's 2 years later on Linux and you're really liking it, and because you're liking it, the files you create/download personally have increased. You can then:
1.)Install new storage.
2.)First mount it to a temporary location like /mnt/newdisk (you can create new directories in /mnt/ and make one that is called newdisk)
3.)Copy your entire home directory (/home/yourusername) recursively to /mnt/newdisk using something like rsync
4.)Once everything is for sure copied over, delete your home dir to make space
5.)Instruct your distro to then mount your new storage as /home/yourusername on next startup via things like the /etc/fstab file

That might seem like a mouthful in text but in practice, it's not that difficult. Intimidating? Maybe.
Does it have pitfalls? Yeah a few, if you didn't delete your original home directory and mounted the new storage over it, then for that session, until you unmount it, the old files would not be accessible again (but still exist) because Linux now points that location to your new drive.
So ...you would not gain any new space on your old drive until you cleared the files you copied over.

Makes sense? Well plenty of material online that covers it.

But the takeaway is: Linux is one of the most friendly systems in existence when it comes to upgrading storage because you can do so much with it. Including straight up directory replacements and remaps.


edit/p.s.:
To illustrate the point. One of my main harddrives is showing signs of age, so I have been backing up things extra meticulously, onto various drives.
Including a network one (aka NAS) that's governed by anothe computer in the network.

Thanks to the nice mounting options, and the SSH filesystem, I could mount that remote storage to my local file/directory structure, treating it like it's 'just another folder' on my drive.

So yeah, even remote storage you can seamlessly integrate.

For shared drives, you gotta format the shared partition to NTFS or lower (like, eugh, FAT or FAT32)
Linux will be able to mount that just fine with read/write access, but ...of course you'll miss out on Linux ownership data and the like.

I think you can even run games straight off an NTFS partition on Linux. The WINE frontend "Playonlinux" will complain if you try to run an exe off an NTFS partition, for example...but if you just tell it to do it anyway...well so far I have never seen it fail.

(I use that for music production, I have several wineprefixes managed by playonlinux for various windows VSTs (virtual instruments) which I bridge to Linux usage via the 'yabridge' toolkit, and the installers and co worked just fine. Well, they opened and ran. Sometimes you get graphical glitches and other regressions vs running them in native Windows but...gotta take what you get sometimes...)

With how cheap SSD's are these days, I run Win10, Win11, and Linux on three separate SSD's for maximum stability (looking at you Microsoft).

Originally posted by Electric Cupcake:

If you want to access the windows drive from Linux, make sure to disable 'fast boot' and hibernation.

Also, Linux prefers the system clock to be set to UTC and Windows will always reset it to local unless you set the realtimeisuniversal registry dword.

https://windowsregistryreference.miraheze.org/wiki/RealTimeIsUniversal

Yes, I would get a 500 GB drive for that, at least.

You will be using separate partitions anyway, since the OSs want completely different file systems. Where you keep new and old files is up to you.

Thanks you! Will sure keep these in mind!

Originally posted by the.lovewyrm:

Linux is very space efficient, even distributions like good old Slackware, where you are meant to install the whole repository as a whole hog setup is a few GBs max.

Also, Linux embraces the old UNIX philophy of 'everything is a file and interchangeable' so you don't have to worry about space too much right now.

Later on, if you're more confident, more lived in and perhaps have more budget for storage (not saying you're poor, even a billionaire could set himself a budget for 'fun stuff' that is very tight) ...

At that point you can buy more storage, and flat out map entire partitions to directories (aka, mounting).

...

So yeah, even remote storage you can seamlessly integrate.

Thank you! This was really educating!
Just curious -- is it better to integrate same-ish storage devices, like -- HDD to HDD, SSD to SSD? Guess having f.e. Baldur's Gate 3 installed on HDD and SSD at once would not do much good tor loading speed...

Originally posted by Phénomènes Mystiques:

With how cheap SSD's are these days, I run Win10, Win11, and Linux on three separate SSD's for maximum stability (looking at you Microsoft). :csd2smile:

Checked the number of M2 and SATA ports on would-be motherboards -- there are enough to pull your suggestion off :) Thank you!