Swapping in Operating System (OS)

Learn about difference between segmentation and paging here. 

Advantages of Swapping

• The process helps the CPU to manage multiple processes within the same main memory.
• The method helps to create and use Virtual Memory.
• The method is economical.
• Swapping makes a CPU perform several tasks simultaneously. Hence, processes do not have to wait for too long before they are executed.

Disadvantages of Swapping

Although the process has no significant or effective disadvantage, the overall method depends heavily on the virtual memory. Such dependability results in a significant performance drop.  

• In the case of heavy swapping activity, if the computer system loses power, the user might lose all the information related to the program.
• If the swapping algorithm is not good, the overall method can increase the number of page faults and decline the overall processing performance.
• Inefficiency may arise in the case where a resources or a variable is commonly used by the processes which are participating in the swapping process.

Operating System which uses Swapping

• UNIX systems use a swapping mechanism if the main memory gets The system may discontinue swapping when the load on the processor drops.
• Windows 3.1 is another operating system which uses swapping when the load on the processor is heavy.

Mobile Systems using Swapping

Mobile phone usually does not use the concept of swapping during their operation. The most popular mechanism used by them is flash memory which is more efficient than the hard drives used for persistent storage. The flash memory can only be written a limited number of times before it becomes unreliable. Thus, the method is avoided to be used in the case of mobile devices.