Alex Merry: Arrow: pointing the way forward for high-performance nanopore signal handling with POD5

POD5 is the upcoming Apache Arrow-based file format for storing the measured signal data of reads, replacing the existing FAST5 format. It allows reads to be basecalled on other systems or at a later date, as well as supplying training data for new basecalling models. Here, I discuss what it is, why it exists, and what advantages it has over FAST5, as well as touching on the changes that have been made since the initial public preview release.