benefits of virtual memory Essay example

Submitted By ameer_2626
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The Benefits and Uses of Virtual Memory
Shane Edwards
POS/355
July 8, 2014
Steven Kernan
The Benefits and Uses of Virtual Memory
There are many benefits and uses of virtual memory. First of all it marks the separation of physical memory, the total amount of memory installed on a computer, and logical memory, the address space assigned to a logical partition that the operating system perceives as its main storage. By making use of virtual memory, programmers are able to get a very large logical memory at their disposal even when there is a very small physical memory. This situation arises because main memory is very expensive as compared to secondary memory. There is a larger address space available not taking into account the actual size of the physical main memory available.
A process can run even on a system which has less main memory than the amount required by the process. This negates one of the most fundamental restrictions in programming. The use of virtual memory also frees up the programmer. The programmer no longer needs to worry about the size constraints of the physical memory on every computer their program is going to be used. With that being said they can better concentrate on the logic of the program. Programs do not always execute all parts or every statement of their code during a typical run. A large part of the code may be skipped on some condition check and may never be executed.
Without virtual memory, running the process on such a machine would be a very expensive as it would be left to the programmer to come up with a solution instead of letting the OS and hardware do the job. Meaning an increase in programming time which translates into higher cost. With the use of virtual memory, the turnaround time of processes is reduced. This is because the process can start even when there is not