Aside from the fact that most people using tape for archival storage don't want to pay extra for the read/write heads, SATA interface, etc., there is no reason why you couldn't package all these things into a self-contained tape unit with a small flash disk acting as a small cache and directory listing.
You could definitely package such a thing for consumers, for example, but most workloads there aren't a great fit for the medium. Basically the only thing that makes sense is using it for archival and backups.
Aside from the fact that most people using tape for archival storage don't want to pay extra for the read/write heads, SATA interface, etc., there is no reason why you couldn't package all these things into a self-contained tape unit with a small flash disk acting as a small cache and directory listing.
You could definitely package such a thing for consumers, for example, but most workloads there aren't a great fit for the medium. Basically the only thing that makes sense is using it for archival and backups.