In genral
2007-09-11 07:26:52 · 4 answers · asked by abusamra 1 in Computers & Internet ➔ Other - Computers
and disadvantages?
2007-09-11 07:31:51 · update #1
Have you read through the Wikipedia entry for Virtual Memory? Even if you don't want to get into the technical side of the article, most wiki entries still have enough of an overview for the casual reader.
2007-09-11 07:32:55 · answer #1 · answered by Jim Maryland 7 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Not sure it has an advantage over REAL Ram, but its better than not having it.
VM is where the machine uses free sectors of the HD to store data that it wants faster access to. Must like ram, but its slower to access since its on a mechanical disk rather than a ram chip
2007-09-11 07:31:40 · answer #2 · answered by jared_e42 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
Virtual memory can be deleted. It is not part of your actual hard drive\PC. It stores things...places you've been, pages you've looked at, programs you've just opened, things in case you want to print them, cookies for easier web manuevers, etc. These are all "cached", supposedly to help & make things easier, on your hard drive. They take up a ton of room after a while & fortunately can be deleted...Otherwise you'd run out of real memory to use...your hard drive would be filled with basically what is now junk. There'd be nowhere to enter anything & your PC'd be dead.
2007-09-11 09:57:04 · answer #3 · answered by Larry W 5 · 0⤊ 0⤋
advantage: unlimited RAM for your programs.
disadvantage: page faults (having to access the physical ram takes time, then once you accessed RAM and found out the data wasn't in RAM but was in VM you have to make an IO access to disk. Since the disk is mechanical, that takes much longer).
2007-09-11 07:39:21 · answer #4 · answered by Anonymous · 0⤊ 0⤋