Internal Fragmentation

When it occurs?

When the memory assigned to the process is larger than the memory requested by the process.

Example

The memory space is divided into the fixed-sized blocks of 32 bytes. Let us consider that program ‘A’ request for 24 bytes and a fixed-sized block of 32 bytes is assigned to the program. Now, the difference between assigned and requested memory is 8 bytes which is internal fragmentation.

What is the solution?

The memory must be divided into variable sized blocks and assign the best-fit block to the process requesting for the memory. In simple words, internal fragmentation can be reduced effectively by allocating the smallest partition but large enough for the process. However, the problem will not be resolved entirely but can be mitigated to some extent.