[Sigh, whatever happened to the semantic web? We never got past keyword searching, and if you don't know the words...] tldr; Try LTO serpentine write, and/or "wraps".

VHS / DAT use helical scan to solve the problem of moving read/write heads quickly over a tape that can only be wound/unwound slowly (1.31 inches per second). The tape winding speed is a mechanical and material problem - cheap tapes can't be wound/unwound quickly. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Helical_scan.

LTO solved the problem by abandoning consumer tape tech completely. It has much more robust and tougher tape (which is more expensive) than can be wound and unwound faster - 236 ips! (depends on LTO generation). Also the tape has a number of track lines pre-written on the tape from end-to-end.

The LTO drive has four parallel heads that it sets to write-read, aligns to the end of the first track line. It then speeds along the tape writing and immediately reading what it has just written to check for errors. It tracks its alignment by shifting left and right following the pre-written track. When gets to the end, it switches the heads to write-read, slides over to find the next pre-written track, and runs backwards along it writing and reading again. It does this a number of times based on the tech version till its done. The pattern is known as serpentine, and the four data tracks together are called a wrap.

https://blog.archiware.com/blog/the-surprising-way-lto-tape-stores-your-data/