Thanks for the suggestion, Shawn. I've thought about it, but I don't have a Windows license that allows that (unless W10 is different than my understanding of my prior W7 license). I also haven't used Windows enough in the past few years to warrant the effort to set it up.
Besides, I think my concern comes ahead of that: do I need to do anything special to prepare for Intel RST (fake RAID)? If I knew that there were no problems ahead with that feature, then I could just start the installer, choosing to repartition for dual-boot or for only Linux, if I wished.
Bill