A tape cartridge (100) has a front face (102) sized for compatibility with an industry standard tape drive, and has sides longer than the sides of some industry standard cartridges. The sides (106, 108) and top of the housing extend outwardly in width to form a back portion of the cartridge that is wider than the front portion and prevent the cartridge from being inserted into non-compatible tape drives. Two large diameter tape hubs (114, 116) improve the empty hub to full pack diameter ratios, and improve the resulting tangential drive force and tape tension profiles as the tape moves between the hubs. Flanges (115, 117, 119) are permanently bonded to the hubs to prevent the tape packs from shifting and a spring (174) biases the hubs against the baseplate. A back set of rollers (148, 150, 152) includes a high-drag roller that engages the drive belt (136) at a fixed wrap angle and produces a relatively constant drag. A front set of rollers (142, 144, 146) includes a drive roller (146) and has rollers mounted to form substantially equal geometries with rollers in the back set respective to the tape hubs. The constant wrap angle of the high-drag roller tends to outweigh varying drags from other rollers, causing less change in tape tension and tangential drive force as the tape is transferred from hub to hub. A door (160) covers the capstan and media access openings in the front face of the cartridge when the cartridge is outside of a tape drive. A write protect arm (424) is pivotally mounted at the front face of the cartridge.