Messages in this thread | | | Date | Wed, 4 Feb 2004 11:18:29 -0800 (PST) | From | Alok Mooley <> | Subject | Re: Active Memory Defragmentation: Our implementation & problems |
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--- "Richard B. Johnson" <root@chaos.analogic.com> > If this is an Intel x86 machine, it is impossible > for pages > to get fragmented in the first place. The hardware > allows any > page, from anywhere in memory, to be concatenated > into linear > virtual address space. Even the kernel address space > is virtual. > The only time you need physically-adjacent pages is > if you > are doing DMA that is more than a page-length at a > time. The > kernel keeps a bunch of those pages around for just > that > purpose. > > So, if you are making a "memory defragmenter", it is > a CPU time-sink. > That's all.
What if the external fragmentation increases so much that it is not possible to find a large sized block? Then, is it not better to defragment rather than swap or fail?
-Alok
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