Feasibility of using 2 separate hard drives to run Windows OR Linux on laptop

Question

I have a Lenovo T430 running Windows 7 Pro, Core i7, integrated graphics, 500GB SSD.

I am in school, an advanced beginner learning to program, and developing in multiple environments depending on the class or group. I use Office 365, Adobe CC, and other common Windows native apps for my business classes. For my CSE classes, I use Notepad++, VS Code, Eclipse, NetBeans, IntelliJIDEA, and several others. I program in Java, Python, COBOL, JavaScript, etc. I've noticed and been told, that I would find life easier if I had access to a Linux machine.

It would be very easy for me to just shut down and swap my drive out to reboot with another one. I'm only familiar with the idea from cloning drives when buying new ones, and finding that I can use either one when I'm done. I'm not familiar enough with Linux to know if I can do it between Windows and Linux. Everything I'm finding online has to do with virtual machines, partitions, and running 2 hard drives at once to dual boot. Seems like they all have the potential for some pretty hairy problems that might take me out of service long enough to keep me from participating in class.

So, would it be possible (or advisable) to be running my laptop under Windows in one class, shutdown, and swap the hard drives out at my next class, (one screw), boot up under Linux, do my coding work, participate in development projects and so on, then shut down, swap hard drives, and be back in Windows? What if I don't need to run one or the other for days, weeks, or months?

Access to files isn't a big deal because I use cloud storage for all the files I need access to. I have backup systems in place, so I'm not very worried about losing anything.

Answer 1

On a T430 you can replace the CD drive by a caddy for a hard disk or SSD, and so have two HDDs in the same machine...

But in my experience dual booting is a pain, sooner or later you find out that you want to use some app which is on the other system. So IMHO you best bet is to run Linux in a VM under Windows so that while things are running under Linux you can still use your Windows apps. I have used a T430 for 4 years running a Linux with Windows VMs and it worked very well, the Windows VMs ran as fast as "native" if not faster sometimes. I expect the opposite to be even more usable, the Linux VMs being much lighter...

If you don't use GUI apps on Linux, a possible very fast setup is to boot a "headless" VM and setup a SSH connexion to it. They you use an editor/filemanager on Windows (accessing files via SFTP) and using SSH terminals to issue commands.

Answer 2

SATA drive slots have a fairly limited number of cycles and arn't designed to be constantly swapped out. Unlike a desktop, its not a matter of simply swapping a cable and drive out. I'd actually consider the alternatives over constantly swapping drives.

You can dual boot on a single drive - most modern linux installers will do that for you, though if you're running windows with secureboot (with windows 7 I doubt its the case) what distro you use matters. My recommendation for the least headaches is to back up windows (cause sometimes bad things happen), boot into a linux live disk and let the installer resize and reparition your drive for a linux install.

Linux will also happily run on a fast enough external storage device - you can literally (very carefully? I sometimes have linux installs that go to the wrong drive) run a linux livecd to install to an external drive and use it to boot.

Its also worth checking if you can slot something into the msata slot on the device and using that. This indicates that has a msata port - shouldn't be too hard to get one installed on a thinkpad and if you arn't too picky, there's fairly inexpensive options.

Answer 3

I would either dual boot from a single hard drive or run Linux on a USB flash drive (preferably usb 3.0+ however 2.0 works fine.) This won't slow down compile times nor programming. Once the software is loaded into RAM (after initial open) you're not going to notice much if any speed differences.