External Fragmentation
Q.1: What is external fragmentation in operating systems?
Answer:
External fragmentation refers to the phenomenon where free memory becomes dispersed in non-contiguous blocks because of the allocation and deallocation of processes. It can prompt the failure to designate memory for new processes, regardless of whether the all out free memory is adequate.
Q.2: What are some common mitigation strategies for external fragmentation?
Answer:
A few procedures are utilized to moderate external fragmentation, including memory compaction, memory allocation algorithms (First Fit, Best Fit, Worst Fit), buddy memory allocation, memory pools, virtual memory systems, garbage collection, and dynamic memory allocation strategies.
Q.3: How does virtual memory help with external fragmentation?
Answer:
Virtual memory systems utilize a blend of RAM and disk storage to give an abstraction layer to memory management. This mitigates external fragmentation by permitting processes to utilize more memory than is physically accessible and paging information among RAM and disk. furthermore, disk storage to give an abstraction layer to memory management. This mitigates external fragmentation by permitting processes to utilize more memory than is physically accessible and paging information among RAM and disk.
Q.4: Which memory allocation algorithm is best for minimizing external fragmentation?
Answer:
The “Best Fit” memory allocation calculation is frequently thought to be compelling for limiting external fragmentation. In any case, the decision of calculation relies upon different elements, including the particular responsibility and framework necessities.
External Fragmentation in OS
Free spaces in the memory, sometimes referred to as fragments, are created whenever a process is loaded or unloaded from the physical memory block. As these regions are not continuous, no process can be given a contiguous allocation of these small memory chunks. As a result, the RAM is squandered and is not available to other processes. This issue is known as fragmentation.