Fragmentation in operating systems refers to the process of dividing a computer file, such as a data file or an executable program file, into fragments that are stored in different parts of a computers memory or disk. This can lead to two types of fragmentation:
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Internal Fragmentation: This occurs when a process is allocated a memory block of size larger than the size of that process, leaving some part of the memory unused.
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External Fragmentation: This occurs when there is enough free memory space to satisfy the memory request of a process, but the memory is not contiguous, so the process's memory request cannot be fulfilled.
Fragmentation can significantly impact the performance of an operating system. It can slow down the read and write speed of the disk, as the disk head has to move to different locations to access the fragments of a file. This, in turn, increases the access time and reduces the overall speed of the system, causing slowdowns and lag in applications.
