The FakeRaid controller I'm using is a FastTrak66 with 2 IDE cables. It can handle 4 devices, but is limited to 66MB/S per channel. I've read that there isn't a lot of point to putting RAID drives on as slave devices, but I wonder if the caution still applies if the slave is a different RAID and is used for data storage/manipulation? I've got 2 spare 80GB slowish drives, so you know I'm going to give this a try. But, I was wondering if anyone had any hard info (or even opinions) before I put this together.

I did notice that what I already have configured is faster, according to bonnie, than a single 133 IDE drive on another machine.

When the slave drive is used, the master drive will run at a slower speed. It doesn't need raid for that to happen.
For example, If you can prevent it, don't have your drive and cdrom on the same cable.
For performance it is better to buy another controller card and only use the master.

"For example, If you can prevent it, don't have your drive and cdrom on the same cable."

Yeah, I figured that. I'll leave the CDROM drive on the mobo cable.

"For performance it is better to buy another controller card and only use the master."

I'll have to mess with this. My feeling is that with the first RAID used for boot and home, and the second used for data, there won't be much interaction, as they won't usually be accessed at the same time. But, in the end, this is entertainment. I had originally hoped I could dual boot Linux on this controller with Windows, but couldn't get it going. Now that I've got it going, I may add Windows, but I'm not sure what I'd do with it. LOL

I have to remember to login to windows XP about once a month so that I get the updates.

"I have to remember to login to windows XP about once a month so that I get the updates."

I'm bored, but I'm not sure I'm THAT bored.

"For performance it is better to buy another controller card and only use the master."

Thought I'd revisit this and strongly verify your comment. I built the second RAID0 using both slave channels. I then ran bonnie on both RAIDs at the same time, and (surprise, surprise), the numbers were pretty much all halved. It would be interesting if I could measure this somehow over the course of actually using the machine to see if disk usage patterns naturally improves the effective speed of both to somewhere near what they are when measured alone.

Never mind. I missed rereading the last sentence of post #3.