This is the talk page for discussing Memory paging and anything related to its purposes and tasks. This is not a forum for general discussion of the subject of the article.

Add new text under old text. New to Wikipedia? Welcome! Learn to edit; get help. Start a new topic Assume good faith Be polite and avoid personal attacks Be welcoming to newcomers Seek dispute resolution if needed Article policies Neutral point of view No original research Verifiability

Find sources: Google (books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL

Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 3 months

This article is rated C-class on Wikipedia's content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects:

Computing: Software Mid‑importance This article is within the scope of WikiProject Computing, a collaborative effort to improve the coverage of computers, computing, and information technology on Wikipedia. If you would like to participate, please visit the project page, where you can join the discussion and see a list of open tasks.ComputingWikipedia:WikiProject ComputingTemplate:WikiProject ComputingComputing Mid This article has been rated as Mid-importance on the project's importance scale. This article is supported by WikiProject Software (assessed as Low-importance). This article is supported by Computer hardware task force (assessed as Mid-importance).

To-do list for Memory paging: edit · history · watch · refresh · Updated 2022-03-14 Here are some tasks awaiting attention: Other : *Clarify and correct discussion of swapping Discuss page stealing (expand) Discuss free page queue (expand) Discuss algorithm complexity Discuss dedicated swap files versus block paging Add older implementations Ferranti Atlas and Atlas 2 (expand) DEC PDP-10 (paging versions) TENEX TOPS-10 TOPS-20 DEC PDP-11 (paging versions) DEC VAX-11 VAX/VMS GE 645 (Multics) IBM System/360 Model 67 TSS/360 CP-67 (CP/CMS) Michigan Terminal System (MTS) IBM System/370 and IBM 4300 DOS/VS DOS/VSE OS/VS1, OS/VS2 (SVS), OS/VS2 (MVS) and successor MVS systems VM

"the graph will look like a hockey stick"? —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 71.202.164.218 (talk)

The article says, in the lead:

In computer operating systems, memory paging is a memory management scheme that allows the physical memory used by a program to be non-contiguous.^[1] This also helps avoid the problem of memory fragmentation and requiring compaction to reduce fragmentation.

Paging is often combined with the related technique of allocating and freeing page frames and storing pages on and retrieving them from secondary storage^[a] in order to allow the aggregate size of the address spaces to exceed the physical memory of the system.^[2] For historical reasons, this technique is sometimes referred to as swapping.

When combined with virtual memory, it is known as paged virtual memory.

In this scheme, the operating system retrieves data from secondary storage in blocks of the same size (pages).

Paging is an important part of virtual memory implementations in modern operating systems, using secondary storage to let programs exceed the size of available physical memory.

However, much - most? - of the rest of the article appears to be discussing paged virtual memory. Memory paging § Page faults, Memory paging § Page fetching techniques, Memory paging § Page replacement techniques, Memory paging § Thrashing, most if not all of the subsections of Memory paging § Implementations, Memory paging § Performance, and at least some of Memory paging § Physical and virtual address space sizes are specifically discussing paged virtual memory.

Perhaps either most of what's here should be merged into Virtual memory § Paged virtual memory, or a new "Paged virtual memory" page hold all but a summary of paged VM, with Virtual memory § Paged virtual memory holding that summary and pointing to said page as the main article. Guy Harris (talk) 01:21, 20 August 2025 (UTC)Reply

See discussion at Talk:Memory swapping#Ambiguous. Memory swapping is an inappropriate redirect. -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 20:45, 1 October 2025 (UTC)Reply

Why did permalink/1323997110[1] remove citations, footnotes and links from the lead? -- Shmuel (Seymour J.) Metz Username:Chatul (talk) 09:59, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Because some rando, as some randos are wont to do, decided, for some unknown reason, to remove them. The removal was reverted. Guy Harris (talk) 23:49, 25 November 2025 (UTC)Reply

Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).