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Is it HFS, HFS+, HFSX? Is it the same in ipods, ipads and iphones, and across different versions of iOS?

bor
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  • [check this question](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5805623/ios-filesystem-hfs) – denolk Oct 12 '11 at 06:04
  • For those interested HFSX is basically HFS+ with addition of case-sensitivity: "_HFSX is an extension to HFS Plus to allow additional features that are incompatible with HFS Plus. The only such feature currently defined is case-sensitive filenames._", from [Technical Note TN1150](http://developer.apple.com/library/mac/#technotes/tn/tn1150.html) – bor Oct 12 '11 at 07:50
  • [In the disk of an iPhone, are both HFSX slices journaled?](http://apple.stackexchange.com/q/108166/8546) – Graham Perrin Nov 03 '13 at 18:17

4 Answers4

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It's HFSX.

According to "Mac OS X, IPod, and IPhone Forensic Analysis DVD Toolkit" book, the IPhone Partitioning scheme (which is quite similar to similar to Apple TV) contains:

1 - A first Master Boot Record partition (around 500mb),

2 - followed by an Apple_Free area,

3 - then a a first HFSX partition, which primarily stores the iPhone's operating system.

4 - Again, another Apple_Free area

5 - and finally the second HFSX partition holding all user data (apps, movies, pictures, whatever)

Pascal
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It would appear that iOS devices all use HFSX.

Noah Witherspoon
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1

Coming very shortly this will no longer be the case.

As of iOS 10.3 all iOS devices will be automatically updated to use APFS (Apple File System).

Read more here :)

Fogmeister
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0

Here are some similarities between the two file systems (iOS and macOS):

Similarities:

  • They are both Unix based. If you don’t know what this means, never mind. ;-)
  • Both have special folders called Documents or Library for each user (macOS) or App (iOS)
  • Both may sync content with the cloud by using iCloud

Differences:

  • While the security (who can access which folders) on macOS is relatively lax, on iOS it is extremely strict.
  • The absolute paths for key folders in macOS, such as your home folder, don’t change every time you boot your Mac. On iOS, on the other hand, the absolute path for key folders will change.
Alain Stulz
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Abdelfattah
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