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?
Not really, no. I would use either Windows or Linux on the desktop, and run the services and the other OS in VMs.
Personally I use Windows on my desktop, and I have a Linux VM running docker containers. I use that same VM for random Linux tasks I can’t do on Windows too.