I have a desktop PC with two SSDs—one with Windows installed and the other currently empty, which I plan to use for Linux as I migrate to it. Additionally, I have two 4TB HDDs I intend to configure for NAS storage.
Since I can’t afford a dedicated NAS setup just yet, I’m considering dedicating a portion of the empty SSD to run a NAS solution like TrueNAS or Proxmox for self-hosting. Ideally, I’d like the NAS portion to operate continuously in the background, while allowing me to boot into either Linux or Windows as usual.
Is it possible to set up the NAS environment this way, so it’s always running and accessible, even as I switch between Linux and Windows on my main system?
I’m basically running this setup with Unraid as my hypervisor. It’s definitely doable, but takes a lot of tinkering to get everything up and running and games with super strict anti cheat won’t run at all. I would only recommend going this route if you really enjoy tinkering, I’d say finding a cheap second hand PC for your NAS is probably much less work.