What is virtual memory and why is it important?

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Multiple Choice

What is virtual memory and why is it important?

Virtual memory is the technique of using disk storage to extend the memory available to programs. The system presents each process with its own virtual address space and translates those addresses to real RAM locations, moving data to and from the disk as needed. This lets you run programs larger than the installed RAM and manage many processes at once while keeping them isolated from one another. When a needed data page isn’t in RAM, the system fetches it from disk and may swap out other pages to make room. The disk backing store makes RAM effectively larger and provides process isolation. It’s not simply RAM, and it isn’t data compression in RAM.

Virtual memory is the technique of using disk storage to extend the memory available to programs. The system presents each process with its own virtual address space and translates those addresses to real RAM locations, moving data to and from the disk as needed. This lets you run programs larger than the installed RAM and manage many processes at once while keeping them isolated from one another. When a needed data page isn’t in RAM, the system fetches it from disk and may swap out other pages to make room. The disk backing store makes RAM effectively larger and provides process isolation. It’s not simply RAM, and it isn’t data compression in RAM.

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