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Page (computer memory)
A page, memory page, or virtual page is a fixed-length contiguous block of virtual memory, described by a single entry in a page table. It is the smallest unit of data for memory management in an operating system that uses virtual memory. Similarly, a page frame is the smallest fixed-length contiguous block of physical memory into which memory pages are mapped by the operating system.
A transfer of pages between main memory and an auxiliary store, such as a hard disk drive, is referred to as paging or swapping.
Computer memory is divided into pages so that information can be found more quickly.
The concept is named by analogy to the pages of a printed book. If a reader wanted to find, for example, the 5,000th word in the book, they could count from the first word. This would be time-consuming. It would be much faster if the reader had a listing of how many words are on each page. From this listing they could determine which page the 5,000th word appears on, and how many words to count on that page. This listing of the words per page of the book is analogous to a page table of a computer file system.
Page size is usually determined by the processor architecture. Traditionally, pages in a system had uniform size, such as 4,096 bytes. However, processor designs often allow two or more, sometimes simultaneous, page sizes due to its benefits. There are several points that can factor into choosing the best page size.
A system with a smaller page size uses more pages, requiring a page table that occupies more space. For example, if a 232 virtual address space is mapped to 4 KiB (212 bytes) pages, the number of virtual pages is 220 = (232 / 212). However, if the page size is increased to 32 KiB (215 bytes), only 217 pages are required. A multi-level paging algorithm can decrease the memory cost of allocating a large page table for each process by further dividing the page table up into smaller tables, effectively paging the page table.
Since every access to memory must be mapped from virtual to physical address, reading the page table every time can be quite costly. Therefore, a very fast kind of cache, the translation lookaside buffer (TLB), is often used. The TLB is of limited size, and when it cannot satisfy a given request (a TLB miss) the mapping must be fetched from the page table (either by hardware, firmware, or software, depending on the architecture) for the correct mapping. Larger page sizes mean that a TLB cache of the same size can keep track of larger amounts of memory, which avoids costly TLB misses.
Rarely do processes require the use of an exact number of pages. As a result, the last page will likely only be partially full, wasting some amount of memory. Larger page sizes lead to a large amount of wasted memory, as more potentially unused portions of memory are loaded into the main memory. Smaller page sizes ensure a closer match to the actual amount of memory required in an allocation.
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Page (computer memory) AI simulator
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Page (computer memory)
A page, memory page, or virtual page is a fixed-length contiguous block of virtual memory, described by a single entry in a page table. It is the smallest unit of data for memory management in an operating system that uses virtual memory. Similarly, a page frame is the smallest fixed-length contiguous block of physical memory into which memory pages are mapped by the operating system.
A transfer of pages between main memory and an auxiliary store, such as a hard disk drive, is referred to as paging or swapping.
Computer memory is divided into pages so that information can be found more quickly.
The concept is named by analogy to the pages of a printed book. If a reader wanted to find, for example, the 5,000th word in the book, they could count from the first word. This would be time-consuming. It would be much faster if the reader had a listing of how many words are on each page. From this listing they could determine which page the 5,000th word appears on, and how many words to count on that page. This listing of the words per page of the book is analogous to a page table of a computer file system.
Page size is usually determined by the processor architecture. Traditionally, pages in a system had uniform size, such as 4,096 bytes. However, processor designs often allow two or more, sometimes simultaneous, page sizes due to its benefits. There are several points that can factor into choosing the best page size.
A system with a smaller page size uses more pages, requiring a page table that occupies more space. For example, if a 232 virtual address space is mapped to 4 KiB (212 bytes) pages, the number of virtual pages is 220 = (232 / 212). However, if the page size is increased to 32 KiB (215 bytes), only 217 pages are required. A multi-level paging algorithm can decrease the memory cost of allocating a large page table for each process by further dividing the page table up into smaller tables, effectively paging the page table.
Since every access to memory must be mapped from virtual to physical address, reading the page table every time can be quite costly. Therefore, a very fast kind of cache, the translation lookaside buffer (TLB), is often used. The TLB is of limited size, and when it cannot satisfy a given request (a TLB miss) the mapping must be fetched from the page table (either by hardware, firmware, or software, depending on the architecture) for the correct mapping. Larger page sizes mean that a TLB cache of the same size can keep track of larger amounts of memory, which avoids costly TLB misses.
Rarely do processes require the use of an exact number of pages. As a result, the last page will likely only be partially full, wasting some amount of memory. Larger page sizes lead to a large amount of wasted memory, as more potentially unused portions of memory are loaded into the main memory. Smaller page sizes ensure a closer match to the actual amount of memory required in an allocation.