Assembly Language Questions
Memory swapping, also known as virtual memory swapping, is a technique used by operating systems to manage memory resources efficiently. It involves transferring data or programs between the main memory (RAM) and secondary storage (usually a hard disk) when the available physical memory is insufficient to hold all the running processes or data.
When a process is not actively being used, its data or program instructions can be temporarily moved to the secondary storage to free up space in the RAM for other processes. This process is known as swapping out. When the process needs to be executed again, its data is swapped back into the RAM from the secondary storage, which is called swapping in.
Memory swapping allows the operating system to handle more processes than the available physical memory can accommodate, effectively increasing the total memory available to the system. However, swapping data between the RAM and secondary storage can introduce performance overhead due to the slower access times of the secondary storage compared to the RAM.