I was actually researching RAID options a couple of days ago and thought that some of the rarer raid options would probably be better option (Raid 50,60, or 01). Unfortunately, none of the supermicro boards seems to offer any of those, so you will need to buy a raid card in addition to the motherboard. CPU's and RAM I am not much help with. As for cases, get something with a lot of room. I would suggest maybe a stacker or something along those lines.