swap SSD to test run Linux?
I want to make the switch but I want to test run first before fully committing. My PC has an M.2 SSD. I was thinking I could buy another one, swap them out and put Linux on that. In an emergency, I can swap the SSD back. Does this seem like a viable/sensible path toward Linux? I don't really have too many files on my PC that I care about. I don't want to dual boot. I did that on a laptop back in the day and it was annoying.
That's the best, safest way. By the way, you can do the same thing from a flash drive too, if it has enough space to hold the system. I don't mean as a live temporary system, I mean you can just point the installer to a second flash drive as the install disk and it won't care.
But keep in mind slower read performance will make the system slower. The SSD will fly by comparison. Don't let a flash drive fool you into thinking Linux is slow.
I used a usb-c external SSD drive. Worked like a charm and I even could run starcitizen from that with no remarkable performance drop. Once I was settled with linux I just installed the external SSD internally.
Yeah that's a very good way to do it. No risk of accidentally picking the wrong drive or anything.
This is exactly what I did. Later I copied my old system to a VM and I boot it up inside Linux when needed.
Does your pc's mobo have 2 m.2 slots? If so, that's a great solution. If you do decide to stick with linux, that gives you two hdds. If not, you might want to consider buying a m.2 ssd to usb enclosure too. You can use it to transfer files you want to keep or for ventoy or backups.
Good point that I didn't consider. I actually don't know if I have 2 slots. I just took a peek in the glass door and I can't see well enough without unplugging a bunch. Either way, I'm buying another SSD so I guess I'll make that call when I open my case to put it in.
If you only have one slot, you can always put the old drive in a USB4 enclosure and turn it into a really fast flash drive.
If you know the model of your motherboard, you could look up the user manual. Then you don't need to open it to see if you have two slots. Also, I don't know your setup. If you have a slot for a physically bigger hard drive, then it might be a good idea to get a bigger storage drive as your second drive. If you like Linux, then reinstall it to your main drive and keep the second drive as storage drive.
This is what I did and I absolutely love the thing! It's so much faster than any other flash drive for file transfers. I think it's a USB 3.1 Gen 2/SuperSpeed USB 10 Gbps enclosure
Did that too. I even installed a hot swap for my drives. Worked like a charm.
I would highly recommend this as I did something similar. I ran Linux on an older machine separate from my main machine. I did so for about 10 months. Plus I built out a gaming machine for somebody and set up another old machine as a media center, both with Linux.
I finally made the 100% switch just a few months ago. I bought a new M.2 drive and swapped out just like you are planning. I really needed to make sure I had no hitches for work purposes. I haven't even considered swapping back (though in full transparency I have Windows running on a VM for some apps that I can't get in Linux)
yes.
I also would use Clonezilla and make a backup of your current drive. Easy to do, and gives you a backup you can restore anywhere including a virtual machine, meaning you can have windows back inside of Linux if you forgot anything.
Or you can restore the drive if you accidentally corrupt it.
We really should have m.2 insertable disks that plug directly into pcie1x bus
If you've got two slots and a modern motherboard, you can do the same thing but keep both m.2 devices installed. If you really want to be sure, take out the windows device, install Linux on the second, and then put the windows device back in. You'll be able to swap back to windows if needed that way without swapping things out
Why would I need to remove the Windows SSD if adding a second? Just to make sure I don't accidentally overwrite it during install? Is there some other risk I'm not thinking of?
Yeah just in case you overwrite the wrong one during setup.
Most installers don’t try to do too many weird things for boot purposes anymore in the EFI age. Just hit F12 on startup and pick the other option. Or configure grub afterwards to have the windows boot option.
It means you won't end up with dual boot breaking one of your installs, you won't accidentally overwrite anything etc.
Entirely optional, but if you were already planning on removing it anyway, it's not really any extra work
That'll work just fine. If you just want a test run, a LiveUSB is pretty sufficient for more things.