Pros and cons of a dual boot vs a VM run

Dual Boot

Pros

• The running OS uses all the available system resources. This means no lag! A speedy response makes a happy consumer 🙂
• Access to all of the PC resources is the biggest and probably the only advantage of dual booting over virtualization. Whichever operating system you boot into, it will have access to all of the active PC resources as no other OS would be running.

Cons

• You have to decide the partition table for your operating system before you install it (especially in Linux-based systems) as long as you dont want to take any risks with saved data. Also the unused space in your system drives is kind of a waste as you cant use it on the other operating system efficiently.
• Restart required to access the other OS
• Setup process is rather complicated. You require bootable devices.

Running an OS on a VM

Pros:

• A virtual machine you allocates space to your operating system running on it dynamically.(although the maximum size stays fixed) Hence optimum usage of disk space.
• Easy to create clones,snapshot and restore point in case the work you do is unstable or if you have to regularly change systems to work on
• Maybe you’ve been a Windows user all your life and you’ve heard all kinds of praise for Linux, but aren’t sure if you’re ready to commit to a full-scale migration. In that case, don’t dual boot. Use a virtual machine.
• One of the biggest benefits of a virtual machine over dual booting is that a virtual machine is sandboxed. This means a virtualized operating system runs in a completely isolated environment.So if you’re testing for security vulnerabilities or checking the efficacy of a security suite, always do it inside a virtual machine. If you get infected by malware, you can just delete the virtual machine and start over.

Cons:

• Running a VM means 2 Operating systems sharing the same system resources spacially. This causes lags and glitches on low spec systems and so may get irritating to use.
• Even with a powerful computer, virtual machines can be problematic when doing resource-intensive tasks like gaming, 3D animation, video editing, etc.This is because virtualization involves emulation, and emulated operating systems aren’t as efficient as native operating systems. So if you’re going to do anything that hogs the CPU or GPU, it’s better to go with a dual boot setup instead.

I personally prefer a dual boot due to its speed and well i dont think there is requirement of a windows and Linux system running simultaneously that are configured to do some work which does not involve them needed access to each other. But if you have a high spec laptop go for the VM! It is a lot easier to create restore points and is hassle and tension free ^.^

An Important point to note before you dual boot!

NOTE what your disk partition type is. An MBR disk partition does not support a dual boot. Even if you run a dual boot on it somehow you can only have 4 partitions at max for your disk(unless you make extended partitions and more confusing things). So better convert it to GPT before a dual boot. Converting wipes your disk data completely so back up!