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Paging and segmentation are both memory management techniques used in operating systems to efficiently manage and allocate memory. While they share some similarities, they have distinct characteristics and purposes. Here’s a detailed comparison of the two:
Paging
1. Definition: Paging is a memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous allocation of physical memory, allowing the physical address space of a process to be non-contiguous.
2. Memory Division: In paging, both the physical memory and the logical address space of a process are divided into fixed-size blocks. The fixed-size blocks in physical memory are called frames, and the logical address space is divided into pages.
3. Size: Pages and frames are of equal size, which simplifies the management of memory but can lead to internal fragmentation if a process does not fully utilize a page.
4. Address Mapping: A page table is used to keep track of the mapping between the pages of a process and the frames in physical memory. The logical address is divided into a page number and an offset, which helps in retrieving the actual physical address.
5. Fragmentation: Paging can lead to internal fragmentation due to unused space within a page, but it eliminates external fragmentation, making it easier to manage memory.
6. Performance: The performance of paging can be affected by the page table size and the number of memory accesses required to…