SATA / Serial ATA Hard Drives come in two basic types - Enterprise grade and desktop grade. Enterprise grade SATA disks are built for 24x7 operation and are almost exclusively used in servers that use hot swappable (hot-swap) drives with a SAS or SATA hot pluggable backplane. You use a hard drive tray or caddy or sled, and simply slide and clip the drive into the front of your server. Desktop grade drives, as the name implies, are mostly used in less intense desktop applications.

Example models are: ST3250310NS WD2500BS WD1600YS 6Y250M0 WD1500HLFS WD1500ADFD 0A31347.

Hot-swap SATA / Serial ATA hard drives are commonly used in Dell PowerEdge 840, 1900, 1950, 1950 III, 2900, 2900 III, 2950, 2950 III, 2970, 6900, 6950, R300, R900, R905, T300, T605 Servers and PowerVault MD1000, MD3000, NF100, NF500, NF600 Storage Arrays; Compaq Proliant® systems such as DL140 G2 , DL140 G3 , DL145 G2 , DL145 G3 , DL160 G5 , DL180 G5 , DL185 G5, DL320 G3 , DL320 G4 , DL320 G5 , DL320 G5p , DL360 G4p , ML110 G3 , ML150 G3 , ML310 G2 , ML310 G3 , ML310 G4 , ML310 G5 , ML350 G4p , ML350 G5; and Ibm xSeries such as 206M, 306m, 3250, 3455, 206, 226, 236, 336, x206, x226, x236, x336.