Imagine you're working at a desk with limited surface area (this is your RAM). You're working on 10 different projects, but your desk only has space for 3 folders at once. What do you do? You keep a filing cabinet next to your desk (this is your hard drive). When you need to work on a different project, you quickly swap folders between the desk and the filing cabinet. This is exactly how virtual memory works - it uses hard drive space as an extension of RAM when you run out of physical memory!
This introduction covers The Desk with a Filing Cabinet within Virtual Memory for GCSE Computer Science. Revise Virtual Memory in 3.4 Computer Systems for GCSE Computer Science with 15 exam-style questions and 16 flashcards. This topic appears less often, but it can still be a useful differentiator on mixed-topic papers. It is section 1 of 10 in this topic. Use this introduction to connect the idea to the wider topic before moving on to questions and flashcards.
Practice questions for Virtual Memory
What is virtual memory?
Explain how virtual memory works when a user opens more programs than RAM can hold.