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In computer storage, fragmentation is a phenomenon in which storage space, such as computer memory or a hard drive, is used inefficiently, reducing capacity or performance and often both. The exact consequences of fragmentation depend on the specific system of storage allocation in use and the particular form of fragmentation.
Operating systems may use different slab sizes and internal layouts depending on the size of the objects to be stored. The reason for the large slabs having a different layout from the small slabs is that it allows large slabs to pack better into page-size units, which helps with fragmentation.
An example of the fragmentation of a protocol data unit in a given layer into smaller fragments. IP fragmentation is an Internet Protocol (IP) process that breaks packets into smaller pieces (fragments), so that the resulting pieces can pass through a link with a smaller maximum transmission unit (MTU) than the original packet size.
File system fragmentation is more problematic with consumer-grade hard disk drives because of the increasing disparity between sequential access speed and rotational latency (and to a lesser extent seek time) on which file systems are usually placed. [8] Thus, fragmentation is an important problem in file system research and design.
Address space layout randomization (ASLR) is a computer security technique involved in preventing exploitation of memory corruption vulnerabilities. [1] In order to prevent an attacker from reliably redirecting code execution to, for example, a particular exploited function in memory, ASLR randomly arranges the address space positions of key data areas of a process, including the base of the ...
An overlay manager, either part of the operating system or part of the overlay program, loads the required overlay from external memory into its destination region when it is needed; this may be automatic or via explicit code.
Paging: It is a technique to minimize the internal as well as the external fragmentation in the physical memory. [disputed – discuss] Virtual file system (VFS): A VFS is a file system used to help the user to hide the different file systems complexities. A user can use the same standard file system related calls to access different file systems.
Operating systems provide common services, such as an interface for accessing network and disk devices. This enables an application to be run on different hardware without needing to be rewritten. [15] Which services to include in an operating system varies greatly, and this functionality makes up the great majority of code for most operating ...