I'm no expert but when i researched the dual-boot options i came to
the conclusion that the best way was to have two hard drives. That
setup works very easily with 6 month releases as it allows one to
fully check each HD.

One thing i have found useful with both winblows and ubuntu is the
have a remote drive for data (which i can also just connect easily to
a different machine when necessary) and just HD system drives on the
machine. I have bitter memories of forgetting to backup data when i've
been under pressure and so don't take the risk now. perhaps i'm
cautious or old fashioned but i like to 'scandisk' thoroughly each HD
before installation.