Hadoop FS: The widest range of users can operate any file system.
Hadoop DFS and HDFs dfs: only HDFs file system related (including operations with local FS) can be manipulated, the former has been deprecated, generally using the latter.
The following reference from StackOverflow
Following are the three commands which appears same but have minute differences Hadoop fs {args} Hadoop dfs {args}
HDFs Dfs {args}
Hadoop FS <args>
FS relates to a generic file system which can-any file systems like local, HDFS etc. So can is used when you are are dealing with different file systems such as local FS, Hftp FS, S3 FS, and others
Hadoop DFS <args>
The DFS is very specific to HDFS. Would work for operation relates to HDFS. This has been deprecated and we should use HDFs DFS instead.
HDFs DFS <args>
Same as 2nd i.e would work for all the operations related to HDFS and is the recommended command instead of Hadoop DFS
Below is the list categorized as HDFS commands.
* * #hdfs commands**
namenode|secondarynamenode|datanode|dfs|dfsadmin|fsck|balancer|fetchdt|oiv|dfsgroups
So even if your use Hadoop DFS, it'll look locate HDFs and delegate that command to HDFs DFS
turn from: http://blog.csdn.net/jediael_lu/article/details/37649609