Question

Using swap space significantly _________ system performance.

a) increases
b) decreases
c) maintains
d) does not affect

Answer 1

Using swap space decreases system performance because it is slower than accessing physical RAM, resulting in performance degradation, although it can provide stability.The correct answer is b) decreases.

Step-by-step explanation:

Using swap space significantly decreases system performance. When a computer runs out of physical RAM, it uses a portion of the hard drive or SSD, called swap space, to temporarily store and access data. However, because hard drives and SSDs are slower than RAM, accessing data from swap space is much slower than accessing it from RAM. This results in performance degradation, especially in memory-intensive tasks where frequent reading from and writing to the swap space is required. On the other hand, having swap space can prevent a system from crashing when it runs out of memory, but it's a trade-off between system stability and performance.

The correct answer is b) decreases. Using swap space significantly decreases system performance. Swap space, also known as virtual memory, is a portion of a computer's hard drive that is used to temporarily store data that cannot fit into the physical RAM. When a computer relies heavily on swap space, it has to constantly read from and write to the hard drive, which is much slower than accessing data from RAM. This can lead to slower performance and decreased overall system responsiveness.