OS Memory Allocation Q & A #1

Question: What are the differences between paging and segmentation?

Answer: Following are the differences between paging and segmentation.

Sr. No.	Paging	Segmentation
1	A page is a physical unit of information.	A segment is a logical unit of information.
2	A page is invisible to the user's program.	A segment is visible to the user's program.
3	A page is of fixed size e.g. 4Kbytes.	A segment is of varying size.
4	The page size is determined by the machine architecture.	A segment size is determined by the user.
5	Fragmentation may occur.	Segmentation eliminates fragmentation.
6	Page frames on main memory are required.	No frames are required.

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