A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and writes data stored on a magnetic tape. It is typically used for off-line, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.
A tape drive provides sequential access storage, unlike a disk drive, which provides random access storage. A disk drive can move its read/write head(s) to any random part of the disk in a very short amount of time, but a tape drive must spend a considerable amount of time winding tape between reels to read any one particular piece of data. As a result, tape drives have very slow average seek times. Despite the slow seek time, tape drives can stream data to and from tape very quickly. For example, modern LTO drives can reach continuous data transfer rates of up to 80 MB/s, which is as fast as most 10,000 RPM hard disks.
From Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tape_drive
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