Tape can do random seeks, but its generally append only. LTO, though supports partitioning which is utilized by LTFS (https://www.lto.org/linear-tape-file-syste

Tape can do random seeks, but its generally append only. LTO, though supports partitioning which is utilized by LTFS (https://www.lto.org/linear-tape-file-system/ https://www.lto.org/linear-tape-file-system/) to provide a mountable filesystem abstraction. It works just like any other filesystem, but one has to remember that seeks are much slower than HDs and that overwriting/updating a file basically is like a versioned FS where the old data is still being stored. Edit: Also, tape formats tend to come in two scan methods since they are generally wider than the tape heads (which frequently are actually multiple heads). Helical scan (think VHS/DAT) and serpentine. LTO is serpentine which means it writes a track from beginning to end, then writes the next track in "reverse" from end to beginning, then the next track again from beginning to end. Back and forth until it hits its track limit. So basically just about every modern drive reads and writes in both forward and reverse. Although shoe shining (backing up to start the next read/write) is still a thing despite variable speed drives which try to speed match to the data rate the host is reading/writing at.