3 Questions
What is virtual memory?
Virtual memory is a memory management technique that allows a computer to compensate for the limited physical memory by temporarily transferring data from RAM to a designated space on the hard drive.
What is the purpose of virtual memory?
The purpose of virtual memory is to provide a larger effective memory size for running programs, allowing them to utilize more memory than physically available.
How does virtual memory work?
Virtual memory works by dividing the memory into fixed-sized blocks called pages and storing them on the hard drive. When a program needs more memory than is currently available in RAM, the operating system swaps out less frequently used pages to the hard drive and brings in the required pages into RAM.
Study Notes
Virtual Memory
- Virtual memory is a combination of RAM and a dedicated space on the hard disk, called the page file or swap space, which acts as an extension of the RAM.
- Its purpose is to enable a computer to use more memory than is physically available in RAM at any given time.
Purpose of Virtual Memory
- The primary purpose of virtual memory is to provide a safeguard against running out of memory when a program or application requires more memory than is available in RAM.
- It allows a program to use more memory than the physical RAM by temporarily transferring pages of memory to the hard disk when the RAM is full.
How Virtual Memory Works
- When a program requests memory, the operating system checks if the required amount of memory is available in RAM.
- If the RAM is full, the operating system uses an algorithm to determines which pages of memory are not currently being used and transfers them to the page file on the hard disk.
- The operating system then allocates the required amount of memory to the program from the RAM and the page file.
- When the program needs to access data that has been transferred to the page file, the operating system reads it from the hard disk and loads it back into RAM.
- This process of transferring data between RAM and the page file is called paging.
Test your knowledge about virtual memory with this quiz! Learn about the concept of virtual memory, its purpose, and how it works. Challenge yourself and become an expert in the world of computer memory management.
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