HFS+ versus HFS

Why HFS+?

HFS's 16-bit allocation mapping table was a serious limitation for the file system. It meant that HFS could not support more than 65, 536(216) allocation blocks. This problem became apparent as disks became larger and the smallest amount of space that a file could take up became excessively large. With the same idea as Example 1 in mind, even a 1 byte file on a 1 GB disk would require 16 KB of disk space. This is why HFS+ was needed.

Benefits of HFS versus HFS+

Typically, the HFS+ file system is better than its predecessor, but there is one case where the Mac OS Standard beats out the Mac OS Extended format. Volumes that are smaller than 32 GB cannot be initialized as Mac OS Extended format. Upon attempting a Drive Setup application, HFS+ will give an "Initialization Failed" message. Floppy disks cannot be initialized with the HFS+ format.