This is what I did, and it did its goal in making me comfortable using Linux. However, like what others suggest, live USB is probably much more easier honestly.
My preference is „bare metal” approach, then I really know if everything is working as it should, so I had a separate drive for Linux installation at the beginning and got to my other drives by just mounting them as NTFS.
But, finally I am at the point of no return for some time now, the old Windows drive is not even inside of my PC and the other drives are ext4 already.
For a quick check Live CDs/USBs are totally fine but not fully representative.
I use VBox to run my PiHole for now and have used it to play with a couple distros side by side. I also have a sup’d up tower built from spare parts from work, so resources aren’t a constraint.
This - but I’d take it a step further and use a small-ish USB 3.2 SSD with Ventoy instead. That way, your live Linux experience isn’t kneecapped by having to load programs off a slow USB stick. In a pinch you can use a SATA SSD with a USB-SATA adapter too, that way you can cram a ton of ISOs on there and go to town.