what is paging in os

what is paging in os

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Nature

Paging is a memory management scheme used in operating systems to manage memory and allocate memory to processes. It eliminates the need for a contiguous allocation of physical memory. In paging, the physical memory is divided into fixed-size blocks called page frames, which are the same size as the pages used by the process. The process of retrieving processes in the form of pages from the secondary storage into the main memory is known as paging. The basic purpose of paging is to separate each procedure into pages. Additionally, frames will be used to split the main memory. This scheme permits the physical address space of a process to be non-contiguous.

Here are some important points about paging in operating systems:

  • Memory is divided into fixed-size blocks called pages, and processes are allocated memory in terms of these pages.
  • Paging reduces internal fragmentation by allocating memory in fixed-size blocks (pages), which are usually much smaller than the size of the processs data segments. This allows for more efficient use of memory since there are fewer unused bytes in each block.
  • Paging reduces external fragmentation, but it is not able to reduce internal fragmentation.
  • Paging improves the efficiency of memory management by dividing memory into pages, and the operating system moves pages in and out of memory as needed. Keeping only the frequently used pages reduces the number of page faults, which improves system performance and responsiveness.

In summary, paging is a memory management technique used in operating systems to manage memory and allocate memory to processes. It divides memory into fixed-size blocks called pages, and processes are allocated memory in terms of these pages. Paging reduces internal and external fragmentation and improves the efficiency of memory management by keeping only the frequently used pages in memory.

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