This discussion is dealing with the Asus Eee PC, model 901. This model has 2 SSDs, the master is 4GB and the slave is 8GB. The master is faster, yet smaller [4GB]; whereas, the slave is slow, yet larger [8GB].

After a little research, I found that you could not simply swap the master/slave relationship in BIOS... although I did find out that you could remove/install a jumper if you'd like to open your system up and mess around with the motherboard.

If you have this model, or another Netbook with limited space and 2 SSDs, then this is for you. Even with the original software it came with, Windows XP, your were plagued with limited space. Strange thing is, ASUS, didn't seem to integrate the 2 drives in a way that was beneficial or streamlined for the user. Your 8GB (slave) was about as helpful as plugging in a USB stick.

1st Attempt! FAILED!

I downloaded UNR, and burned the image to a USB stick, from my other Ubuntu-based laptop. I then booted from that stick on the Netbook. I noticed the BIOS would recognize the USB stick as a device (such as an internal hard drive) so when you designate "Removable Device" as your primary boot... it usually wouldn't work. So I'd have to go into BIOS and pick from the recognized list my Sandisk Cruzer stick. Then it successfully booted. I ran a test on the stick to test the contents, and I'd get failures... which is a flag to not install and reburn img to USB stick. I did so, same deal... I'd then download the img from various sources (as Ubuntu provides many mirrors to do so). No luck! So I defaulted to Ubuntu Standard. No errors, thus I succeeded to the install steps. I chose to format the master [4GB] drive so the boot info would no longer exist, I then formatted the slave [8GB] for a full install to the entirety of the disk. I was attempting to make the 8GB/slave drive the primary drive. Install went thru, then within about 2 boots or so, GNOME ate the dust. I went to the BIOS and attempted to reshuffle the boot order.

2nd Attempt! FAILED!

I booted from the USB drive with Ubuntu Standard. Went thru the motions, decided, to install on the 4GB/master thought it was decided by the ASUS gods. All went well... I had about 1 GB or so remaining on my 4GB master, and my 8GB slave was like a paper weight, equivalent to a USB key. After a couple of boots, Ubuntu ate the dust. I began to get boot errors, and my system wouldn't shut down properly leaving me to hold-down the power button. Back to the drawing board.

3rd Attempt! SUCCESS!

This time I did some research. I found that GNOME could be installed on a separate drive, when learning about a dual-boot between XP and Ubuntu. I then decided to manually format my 8GB slave drive and 4GB master drive.

Here's the breakdown:
- Master drive [4GB] I install a 500MB "swap" and a 4GB "/home".
- Slave drive [8GB] I installed a 500MB "/boot" and a 8GB "/".
- I formatted the drives in the flavor of ext4; whereas, before I formated as ext3.
* I put the boot on the slave,,,, I had to (after deleting each drive's full partition) partition a "/boot" first on the slave before doing anything on the master, because if I did the /boot last I got an error about the master not having a boot (even though in the end, if ordered correctly, I wasn't warned about not having a /boot on the master).

After this, I immediately went into BIOS, fingers-crossed. I situated the boot priority to the slave, since the slave now having boot information, I could now spot it in BIOS. I took the master out of the boot priority completely. I also took the master out of the bootable options as well. I saved, and exited.

Since the IDE controller goes to the master first when booting, it shot to the slave in the boot process, and worked. When in Ubuntu, I noticed the 4GB master was integrated... because my home folder was the actual 4GB master drive, proved by checking the properties of the folder. I then checked the properties of the file structure and I was a little over 8GB. This is great because I've integrated both drives without the need to boot up one or the other from the system upon logging in. Meaning... I had about 12GB of integrated storage.

I noticed zero performance flaws, and it matched the boot-speed of my super powerful laptop and matched performance on typical applications.