[Dr. Sivana]

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.

If the data are not fragmented, the retrieval speed can exceed physical hard drive speeds. That said, much day to day tape storage using regular storage software (TSM/Spectrum Protect, Netbackup, VEEAM) is stored at least temporarily in fragmented form, where even small amounts of specific data can span several tapes. That's what we have robot libraries for.

[glorgau]

the retrieval speed can exceed physical hard drive speeds.

They can't exceed the internal bus speed of the computer.