How does virtual memory and paging work? 1

[TECCHIX]

Hello,

I have a Windows 2000 Server. Does the virtual memory work with the free space on the hard drive? Or does it depend on just the total size of the hard drive?

I hope my question makes sense if not I will try to clarify it.

Thank you.

 

[markdmac]

The answer to your question is...BOTH.

Your paging file can grow depending on if there is available disk space. You configure the ranges that it can start and grow to.

As programs need memory, they read and write to the physical memory. This is often an insufficient amount of memory and thus a temporary holding area (the paging file) is used to swap things in and out of the physical memory.

Say you have 2 programs running. Program 1 is being used constantly, program 2 a little. Program 1 is going to use as much physical memory as it can. When you switch to program 2, it needs to use some of that physical memory, so it swaps out the program 1 info and writes it to the paging file so it can use that physical memory space. When you switch back to program 1, it takes over again and moves the memory from program 2 back to the paging file.