In addition to the two original SSF HDF4 and HDF5 files, I included the dumper output of ncdump and h5dump for your references. I am using the latest HDF5(1.8.13)'s h5dump and ncdump from the netCDF 4.3.2. 1. CER_SSF_h5_h5dump_header Order by name h5dump -H CER_SSF_Aqua-FM3-MODIS_Test_000000.2008121010.h5 2. CER_SSF_h5_h5dump_header_co Order by creation h5dump -H -q creation_order CER_SSF_Aqua-FM3-MODIS_Test_000000.2008121010.h5 3. CER_SSF_h5_h5dump_header_comp Compression info. provided h5dump -H -p creation_order CER_SSF_Aqua-FM3-MODIS_Test_000000.2008121010.h5 4. CER_SSF_h5_ncdump_header ncdump -h CER_SSF_Aqua-FM3-MODIS_Test_000000.2008121010.h5 The HDF5 compound datatype SSF_Header and CERES_metadata are ignored, otherwise following the creation order. 5. Open with Panoply If using Panoply 4.0 to open the HDF5 file, You can see the HDF5 compound datatype dataset SSF_Header and CERES_metadata, the order is by name. Cannot generate plots. 6. OPen with HDFView Can view the file both by creation order and by name.