> Assuming you can read/write at 512 MB/s I realize that's just an assumption for the sake of discussion (and thank you for labeling it as one), but I think it

> Assuming you can read/write at 512 MB/s I realize that's just an assumption for the sake of discussion (and thank you for labeling it as one), but I think it's a little on the low side. Wikipedia says (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open#Generations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Linear_Tape-Open#Generations) that LTO-9 can write at 400 MB/s native and LTO-10 is going to be 1100 MB/s. Since this new Fujifilm format is denser, I would expect it to be even higher speed. Although speed and density don't have a simple linear relationship, speed generally increases with density. Generating enough data to keep the tape moving without a buffer getting empty is an important consideration, but I think this product is mostly aimed at people who have enough data to back up that they can fill a tape in a few hours. (Otherwise, why spend the money on cutting edge technology?) So they probably have lots and lots of machines to back up, and you can stream backups in parallel, writing to a staging area and/or multiplexing onto the tape. Also, there's some risk if you leave a tape in the drive and append to it over the course of several days. While it's still in the drive, it's not quite an offline backup. The drive could malfunction and chew up the tape, or some software could accidentally rewind and start overwriting.