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Fragmentation (computing) In computer storage, fragmentation is a phenomenon in which storage space, main storage or secondary storage, such as computer memory or a hard drive, is used inefficiently, reducing capacity or performance and often both. The exact consequences of fragmentation depend on the specific system of storage allocation in ...
In computing, file system fragmentation, sometimes called file system aging, is the tendency of a file system to lay out the contents of files non-continuously to allow in-place modification of their contents. It is a special case of data fragmentation. File system fragmentation negatively impacts seek time in spinning storage media, which is ...
Defragmentation. In the maintenance of file systems, defragmentation is a process that reduces the degree of fragmentation. It does this by physically organizing the contents of the mass storage device used to store files into the smallest number of contiguous regions (fragments, extents). It also attempts to create larger regions of free space ...
Memory paging. In computer operating systems, memory paging (or swapping on some Unix-like systems) is a memory management scheme by which a computer stores and retrieves data from secondary storage [a] for use in main memory. [citation needed] In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage in same-size blocks called ...
Virtual memory makes application programming easier by hiding fragmentation of physical memory; by delegating to the kernel the burden of managing the memory hierarchy (eliminating the need for the program to handle overlays explicitly); and, when each process is run in its own dedicated address space, by obviating the need to relocate program code or to access memory with relative addressing.
Memory segmentation is an operating system memory management technique of dividing a computer 's primary memory into segments or sections. In a computer system using segmentation, a reference to a memory location includes a value that identifies a segment and an offset (memory location) within that segment. Segments or sections are also used in ...
In operating systems, memory management is the function responsible for managing the computer's primary memory. [1]: 105–208. The memory management function keeps track of the status of each memory location, either allocated or free. It determines how memory is allocated among competing processes, deciding which gets memory, when they receive ...
Memory management (also dynamic memory management, dynamic storage allocation, or dynamic memory allocation) is a form of resource management applied to computer memory.The essential requirement of memory management is to provide ways to dynamically allocate portions of memory to programs at their request, and free it for reuse when no longer needed.