Question

In your own words, how often should memory compaction/relocation be performed? describe the advantages and disadvantages of performing it even more often than recommended.

Answer 1

Moving compaction is the process of moving allocated objects together. As a result, empty spaces between these allocated objects will also be put together.

An advantage of this is that it lets you retain the important bits out of a big amount of information that is provided. For example, it helps you identify the parts that belong to the main track of the story while reading a novel.

A disadvantage of this is that it may lead to leaving behind information that could be relevant for a particular purpose. For example, leaving information that could be relevant behind while revising a thesis.

Answer 2

Compacting and relocating optimizes the use of memory, thus refining memory efficiency. In simpler terms its job is to effectively fit each job into a space without having a lot of wasted memory, the part of the process that refers to “compact”. It should be finished either when a certain percentage of memory is busy; when jobs are waiting to get in; pr after a specific amount of pre- determined time has over and done. One disadvantage is that each job will have a new address except for those that were already at the lowest memory locations. Another is that compaction requires dynamic relocation capability, is very time consuming, and complicates memory management. Also, it cannot share memory between processes, and the process is still limited to physical memory size. For the advantages, the operating system can straightforwardly move a process during execution; the operating system allows a procedure to grow over time and it is measured fast hardware with two special registers.