3 ms·No, they stop, rewind, and accelerate again, causing massive mechanical wear.by namibj 7y agoNo, they stop, rewind, and accelerate again, causing massive mechanical wear.Yeroc 7y agoThe higher-end tape devices are capable of running at slower speeds to better match the rate you're feeding data to it to avoid this.namibj 7y agoYes. But it was argued that they could just stop and wait for the buffer. As said, they do, but you don't want them doing so.