NetCDF-4 is an I/O software package that retains the original netCDF APIs while using HDF5 to store the data. Sponsored by NASA ESTO, netCDF-4 is the result of a collaboration between Unidata and The HDF Group.
The HDF Group has prepared a report on the performance of netCDF-4 that uses benchmarks and examples to:
Some of the performance tuning and pitfalls discussions may also be of interest to users of HDF5 who do not use netCDF-4. The report is available at:
https://support.hdfgroup.org/pubs/papers/2008-06_netcdf4_perf_report.pdf