"My concern with OMSA is really just that I prefer having as little as possible on machines." This is understandable, and Dell kept that in mind when designing the software ... it's lightweight, doesn't interfere with existing services, and they have eliminated the need for a reboot.  The pros far outweigh what few cons there might be.  OMSA services generally take less than 100MB of memory (usually around 80MB) and seldom any CPU cycles.  If ever investigating issues on a server, OMSA is probably your most valuable tool, so that 100MB is a very small price to pay. "With all that said, I'm making the customer sound inflexible, but it's all just all bad timing.  Without rambling on for a few paragraphs, the customer is extremely busy at the first/last of the month.  Next week I could bring it down without a lot of "resistance", but one of their HDDs has a fast flashing amber light, so I assume there's a fault there and that maybe even the array is degraded which is really concerning.  It certainly warrants a reboot, but if I can get around it that would be great." Ha ha ... they sometimes can be :)  I'm glad they aren't, but you are wise to want to get on top of the failed drive (degraded array) as soon as possible ... every minute it is degraded, they are at risk of a second failure (array failure) or data corruption due to read/write errors.   You shouldn't have to reboot after installing OMSA ... there are rare one-off situations that require it, but it is not typical. ftp.dell.com/.../OM-SrvAdmin-Dell-Web-WIN-7.3.0-350_A00.exe Download and run to extract contents, then run C:\Openmanage\windows\setup.exe.  Choose Custom to make sure that Storage Management is being installed (if firmware/drivers are out of date, the storage portion may be disabled from a default installation).  Don't try to second guess what does/does not need to be installed, or it probably won't work, and then a reboot may be necessary to remove o repair it :)  (OMSA will require SP2 to be installed on 2008.)
Hoping you guys can help me.  Let me preface my post by saying I'm not well versed with Dell Poweredge servers.  Excuse me if I ask a dumb question.:emotion-1:  --- We have a client with a Poweredge 2950 with the "Dell Perc6/i Integrated RAID controller".  I'm about 95% sure it has a RAID5 array (3 HDDs).  I'm in an awkward position where the customer doesn't want the server to come down.  However, I'm in a spot where I need to see the Array status and there is no Dell Open Manage, or other RAID monitoring software on the machine. Is there an alternative to the Open Manage software that can just tell me what's going on in the array?  I don't need any kind of advanced features, just a monitor.  Would obviously like to not reboot after installation, but I'm not sure if that's realistic. If I do need the Dell Open Manage software, which one do I need?  I see 15-20+ different flavors of Dell Open Manage on the downloads site.  Is there a way to just install the storage manager part without installing everything else?  Thanks in advance.       
Poweredge 2950 - RAID monitoring software