Test the Big Sur beta before jumping in by partitioning your hard driveYou can either create a partition or a separate volume on your Mac to install and test a macOS beta alongside the current OS.
For years, early adopters and beta testers would partition their Mac's hard drive in order to test a new or beta version of macOS. Partitioning your hard drive actually creates a separate container on your hard drive that is limited in its abilities.
If your Mac uses APFS, you can actually create a volume right on your current hard drive instead. This allows your hard drive to manipulate your available storage temporarily as you need it. It makes testing new or beta operating systems much easier to do and it's easier to remove when you're done testing them out.
IMPORTANT: The developer beta of Big Sur is currently experiencing some issues with installing and updating versions including and most importantly, installing Big Sur onto separate volumes.
From Apple's developer support notes for Dev beta 2:
If macOS Big Sur 11 beta is installed into the same ...
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Test the Big Sur beta before jumping in by partitioning your hard drive
