Opinions on NetCDF vs HDF5 for storing scientific data?

Question

Anyone out there have enough experience w/ NetCDF and HDF5 to give some pluses / minuses about them as a way of storing scientific data?

I\'ve used HDF5 and would like

Answer 1

I strongly suggest you HDF5 instead of NetCDF. NetCDF is flat, and it gets very dirty after a while if you are not able to classify stuff. Of course classification is also a matter of debate, but at least you have this flexibility.

We performed an accurate evaluation of HDF5 vs. NetCDF when I wrote Q5Cost, and the final result was for HDF5 hands down.