Virtual Memory

Virtual memory (or VRAM) is a section of secondary storage that can be used for the purposes of RAM, in cases where there is not enough space left on physical RAM for the data to be placed. In these cases, virtual memory will be used and the data will be stored on secondary storage. This is all handled by the operating system.

Virtual Memory presents a rather outstanding issue when being used, in that it is painfully slow. This means that programs will start to slow down as they will be using speeds far lower than that of physical RAM.

Should virtual memory be being used a lot by a system, looking at getting faster, or more memory is going to be the way to move forward, to ensure that the system is running at its best.

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