A magnetic tape drive has a transport speed of $200$ inches per second and a recording density of $1600$ bytes per inch. The time required to write $600000$ of data grouped in $100$ characters records with a blocking factor of $10$ is

Given,

Tape transport speed $=200$ inches/second

Recording density $=1600$ bytes/inch

Total data $=600000$ bytes

First, find the data transfer rate.

Data transfer rate $=$ Transport speed $\times$ Recording density

Data transfer rate $=200\times1600$

Data transfer rate $=320000$ bytes/second

Now, time required to write data is:

$Time=\frac{\text{Total data}}{\text{Data transfer rate}}$

$Time=\frac{600000}{320000}$

$Time=1.875$ seconds

The records are grouped in $100$ characters with blocking factor $10$, so one block has:

$100\times10=1000$ characters

This grouping affects blocking arrangement, but the total amount of data to be written remains $600000$ bytes.

Therefore, required time is:

$1.875$ sec