[Dylan16807]

I don't really see a reason to prioritize content that hasn't been accessed in 2 months over content that hasn't been accessed in 200 months, when picking what tape to get next. Either way there is only one person waiting.

And I'm already assuming the tapes are offline, because online tapes would just be a waste of money.

Another issue is finding enough content suitable for very high latency systems. Right now they seem to basically just be for backups.

[Robotbeat]

Tape and cheap disk are about the same price per GB, but tape is more stable over long periods and doesn't have to be powered (although power for very large, slow and rarely accessed disk is low).