Hello! I'm a Linux newbie seeking to install Zorin OS 18 Core on my machine and dual boot with Windows 10. I have slight knowledge on how Zorin works already, as I've had 17 Core on my laptop for about a month now.
My system specifications are:
Dell Inspiron 3671 Desktop, Windows 10 Pro
Nvidia GTX 1050 | Intel i7-9700 3.00GHz
128GB SSD | 1TB HDD | 16GB RAM
Now, I have a bit of backstory here. I currently have a flash drive with an image of Zorin OS 18, and I did try to install it before, but I ran into the warning where it told me Ubuntu can't be installed with Intel RST (Rapid Storage Technology) on.
Some digging later, I found out what RST meant for my drives - stuff like redundancy, TRIM, and all that. Stubborn, I spent a few hours trying to find a workaround, but I shied away from things I found since I didn't wanna brick my computer. I guess the next step is to switch from RST to AHCI.
However, I have one qualm with this. From what I can find, RST has redundancy functionality, but AHCI doesn't. I'm worried about losing files/data from odd things like power loss or bit rot (I also have 5 separate flash drives with backups I made before all this). I suppose I'm kind of a computer hypochondriac, hehe.
So, I guess my question is this:
Should I be worried about not having drive redundancy on a normal, consumer-grade PC?
Well, the reality is it doesn't matter what type of drive you have: it will inevitably fail, one day, taking all your data down with it. Therefore, if you are concerned about about this, the answer is not which operating system you should be running, but whether or not you have proper backups of your data.
But if you are not comfortable making the switch for any other reason, I'd suggest installing Virtual Box and running Zorin OS from there. It's a much simpler setup than dual-boot, safer, and you can even run multiple versions of Linux simultaneously if you want to test them.
Full disclosure: I'm very biased against dual boot systems. In my experience they are great until some unexpected update (most often from Microsoft) breaks things.
Another option, if you can, is to use a spare computer to install Zorin OS on. This will give you a much better idea of what it's like and the opportunity to break things without fear of losing data. That's the best way to learn!
That been said, are you sure you need Intel's proprietary, closed-source and partially discontinued technology? You should seriously consider the "discontinued" word.
The journey to Linux is not only about replacing your OS, it's a paradigm shift which involves trying to discard closed-source and proprietary tech in favor of open-source solutions; RST is not the case.
Keeping in mind that I have abandoned Windows 20 years now and I have only Linux-based computers, personally I have 3 different strategies to (try to) avoid data loss:
on desktop mini PCs I use cloud-based document storage (personally I love pCloud which has a very good Linux GUI client); anything is not in the cloud directories is manually backed up at random times;
on home NASes I have Areca hardware-based RAID5 solutions;
on remote bare-metal servers I use Linux software RAID5.
These are my 3 approaches; 2nd and the 3rd need HDD to be reformatted and partitioned so you have to start from scratch. It's worth it.
But do you really use such redundancy? Have you set-up RAID1 or RAID5 with RST? Otherwise there is no redundancy.
This could be for you the right time to sit down a momeny and plan your journey to Freedom.