Recently, I replaced my six-year-old HDD, which was running Windows 10 and really showing its age, with a 500GB SATA 2.5" SSD. I installed Linux Mint on the new SSD since I wanted a lighter system for productivity. Simultaneously, I used a caddy to install the Windows 10 HDD.
I’ve been using Linux Mint for about a week now and have largely enjoyed the experience, except for one issue. Whenever I play video content, the sound is so quiet that I frequently need to use earphones or turn up the amplification, which introduces distortion, leading to an overall unpleasant listening experience. I asked for solutions on the Linux Mint forum and was advised to try other distros to find one without the same issue. Not keen on a potentially tedious search, I’m considering installing Windows 10 on my SSD, as it typically doesn’t have such sound issues.
However, the drawback is that Windows tends to use a significant amount of RAM. But I also really like the lightweight experience offered by Linux. I’m contemplating whether it’s a good idea to install both Windows 10 and a Linux distro on the same SSD. Then, I would wipe the HDD installed using a caddy and use it exclusively for storing documents, pictures, audio, and video content.
Yes it will work fine and there are plenty of guides online to help you do it. You’ll need to shrink your Linux partition to make space for a windows one, you can do this graphically in gparted. If you’re running in Uefi mode then windows will nuke your efi partition so you will need to boot from a live environment and reinstall grub after you’ve installed windows.
You could dual boot but virtualising Mint on Windows is arguably easier
If you ever want to use Windows and Linux at the same time (or at least switch without closing every app and shutting down) forget about dual booting and just use WSL in Windows for a Linux VM.