I run the Windows build on Lutris just fine. You might have to cut the network for a few seconds during the launch (after you press “start game” in the launcher, before it loads the title screen)

Some mainboards have very few PCI-e slots.

I ended up with a similar adapter because the onboard SATA on my board was flaky with optical drives and I rip CDs.

From what I understand, some modern drives effectively encrypt everything at rest, but have the key on file internally so it decrypts transparently. This allows for a fast “wipe” where it just destroys the key instead of having to overwrite terabytes.