Active Example
GCSE: RAM Fills Up
RAM frames6
Programs4
Memory Rules
- •RAM holds a fixed number of pages. When full, inactive pages are swapped to secondary storage.
- •Swapping makes space in RAM but secondary storage is ~100,000× slower than RAM.
- •Programs with pages on secondary storage can still run; this is virtual memory.
- •The OS chooses which pages to swap based on inactivity (similar to LRU).
- •Trade-off: more programs can run, but performance degrades if swapping is frequent.
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Virtual Memory: GCSE
See how programs load into RAM and how the OS swaps inactive pages to secondary storage when RAM is full.
Step Log
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