I have abandoned my MSI Master2-FAR and bought a Tyan S2885. Couldn't get the onboard net working at all - system wouldn't even boot with it enabled. The Tyan is just as tricky
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Assuming your board runs stably, you have the right RAM (I have gone through £800 worth trying to get some that worked), you should be able to get RAID working quite easily.
As long as the drives are recognised, you can configure software RAID. I tried a 4 port Highpoint Rocket 1540 - guess what machine won't boot with it in (neither will the Tyan). I think 3Ware make hardware RAID cards that work with Linux, whether they will work with Opteron boards is another matter.
There are howtos on the net on setting up RAID, some of which are incomprehensible. I used to spend hours fiddling with things to get them working, now I can't be bothered. I suggest you download webmin (you'll need to download the source code and install from that), which has a very easy GUI tool to set up RAID. When I got the Tyan board with it's 4 channel SATA, it set up RAID5 without me having to pull any hair out.
I think this bleeding edge hardware obsession of mine is going to be over very soon. If I could get this damned machine to work consistently, it'll be up for sale!
Jim