multiple IDE drives slow!

Hi,

I have the folloiuwng setup:

P4 1.7Ghz
640MB Rambus PC800
1 40GB HDD Master IDE 0
1 120GB HDD Slave IDE 0
1 52XLiteon Writer Master IDE 1
1 Pioneer DVR106 writer Slave IDE 1
Intel 850 Garibaldi motherboard.
Windows XP Pro Service pack 1

I wanted to know what would be the best setup for access speeds? If I leave the system for a day or so, eventually the desktop starts to freeze up and applications take longer to access. I have carried out a defrag not to long ago on the 40GB master drive. I do not really want to set up XP all over again, any ideas on how to improve performance?

Many thanks in advance