vipul_se

 Profile Answers by vipul_se 

• Jan 28th, 2008

 

Fragmentation arise due to inefficient use of memory or due to the memory management algorithm.
Talking about latest techniques that is used by the present operating system.main memory of a computer is divided in to small section called frames.When a program is loaded on the main memory(not taking paging in account), a particular no of frames is used. When a program terminate it free the memory between two process(suppose), now if the program to be loaded is not of the same length as the earlier program then some frames will remain unasigned. These frames keep increasing when more no of processes enter or exit from the main memory.
This division of free memory in small pieces is called External fragmentation. External in sense that this memory space do not belong to any process.
Operating system do defragmentation to remove these.