From the course: Operating System Forensics
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Virtual memory
From the course: Operating System Forensics
Virtual memory
- [Instructor] Virtual memory is a way to expand main memory by leveraging secondary memory. For example, the OS can allocate space on a solid state drive and utilize it as virtual memory. It gives end users an illusion of a much larger memory space than what the main memory is actually able to provide physically. No matter how large the main memory is, it's always possible to eventually run out of space. Because of this possibility, it's necessary to have a backup plan, which in this case is virtual memory. All OSs implement virtual memory and create virtual memory addresses to map perceived memory locations to either physical addresses in main memory or secondary memory addresses. When the main memory starts to run out, an OS will swap the data which is unlikely to be used again soon out of the main memory and move it to a secondary storage device. This creates space for other processes requiring immediate memory access until they themselves are swapped out. The OS logic dictates…
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