A couple more parameters whould be of interest:
1. What is the access time?
2. What is the read/write cycle time?
3. How much is overhead, particularly for error-correction?
I still have a dozen or more reel to reel tapes on small to medium reels.
I sold my big Japanese reel-to-reel player years ago when someone offered $100...
Even inside of a piece of hardware there are limits as to how fast data can be moved. Those tapes would take a long time to write and a long time to read.
“A couple more parameters whould be of interest:
1. What is the access time?
2. What is the read/write cycle time?
3. How much is overhead, particularly for error-correction?”
My questions exactly. Tapes are sequential access so getting into anything will take much longer than random access devices
...also what are the storage requirements in terms of temperature and humidity. Given these parameters what is the lifetime of the tape? How many trips through the heads before it wears out? How many read/write cycles before the magnetic media wears out?
I would add...
4. What is the total capacity of a cartridge?
5. How long to completely fill a tape cartridge?
6. How long is the tape expected to last?
I used to shag tapes for a living. IBM data cartridges were lots easier to deal with than reels of tape.