Theres always a chance something I need doesnt support linux, imo its smart to have a backup, I just dont want to waste unnecessary space or want to deal with partitions for windows since they give me a lot of issues trying to shrink them. I saw vhds with usb method mentioned on lemmy a few times and it seemed like a way to avoid partitions since you can have a 1tb whd, with 10gb on it on a 100gb harddrive, so Im assuming you can avoid having to lose hella space to a windows install you might never use, instead only as much as it actually takes up.