What is External Fragmentation?

External fragmentation refers to the phenomenon where memory becomes separated into little blocks of free space dispersed all through the framework, making it challenging to distribute bigger adjacent blocks of memory to processes. This division of memory happens because of the allocation and deallocation of processes after some time. As processes are stacked and dumped into memory, gaps are left between them, prompting fragmentation.

This fragmentation is a consequence of the dynamic nature of memory allocation and deallocation. As processes are stacked into memory and afterward delivered when they are not generally required, gaps are left between them. Over the long run, these holes collect and can become divided, making the memory be separated into different multiple smaller segments

External fragmentation essentially influences systems that allocate memory to processes dynamically and have changing memory requirements. In such systems, when a cycle demands a specific measure of memory, the memory chief could have to find a solitary coterminous block of memory that matches the mentioned size. Assuming there are just more modest divided blocks accessible, the memory manager can’t satisfy the solicitation, regardless of whether the aggregate sum of free memory is adequate.

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.