Virtual Memory
Virtual memory is a memory management technique used by computer operating systems to provide the illusion of a large, continuous memory space to active programs, regardless of the actual physical memory available. Each active process is given its own:
- Virtual address space: a range of addresses exclusive to the process that it can use to ensure consistent storage, protected from memory overlap with other processes.
- Hard disk swap space (page file), where the OS stores virtual memory that does not fit in the physical address space.
In a system with virtual memory, the physical address space is hidden from individual programs, and a memory manager maps virtual addresses to their physical locations.