[jiggawatts]

Nobody[1] backs up directly to tape any more. It’s typically SSD to cheap disk with a copy to tape hours later.

This is more-or-less how most cloud backups work. You copy your “premium” SSD to something like a shingled spinning rust (SMR) that behaves almost like tape for writes but like a disk for reads. Then monthly this is compacted and/or archived to tape.

[1] For some values of nobody.