Memory Management

In a system, the storage of information is an important process, and over time, this process can degrade and become cluttered. Here I’ll be talking about a few ways to help with Memory Management, mostly in removing obsolete or unnecessary files and defragmenting a harddrive and what that means.

A big problem when using a system for a long time is the lack of space. Over time, files build up whether those are temporary files that aren’t deleted properly, downloaded files that are no longer useful, or a variety of other things in day to day life. These files can fill space that could be used for more important files or programs. One of the methods of removing these, aside from manual cleanup, is using a program that comes pre-installed on most Windows systems called Disk Cleanup (shown right). This program does exactly what it says, it searches a disk and finds files that can be deleted and removes them from your computer. You can find this program by typing “cleanup” in the start menu’s search bar. This can be useful as it can find and delete files that you yourself might have trouble finding by doing a manual cleanup. This program can also empty your Downloads folder and your Recycle Bin/Trash Bin folder, but these can be deselected or reselected as wanted or needed.

Another problem with memory that can occur is Disk Fragmentation. This occurs over time when, during the normal operation of a computer, files are saved and deleted from the disk. Over time, files are deleted from a disk freeing up space, afterwards new files are saved onto the disk; Fragmentation occurs when files are saved into the space freed up, but that particular bit of space isn’t large enough to contain the entire file. What happens then is your system fills in that space with as much of the file as it can store, then moves to a different bit of the disk to save the rest of the file. This causes the file to be split into pieces and creates extra work for the system whenever the file is accessed.

Typically, this problem is unnoticeable, as the extra time to process the fragments of a file is so minimal as to be non-existent to human perception, but in certain tasks, especially ones where the file is extremely large or where it’s accessed many times, this can cause the system to perform a task inefficiently. It is a problem that is easily fixed however. Most systems come pre-installed with a Disk Defragmentation or Disk Optimization software that can be run manually or set up to run on a schedule. If you’ve used your system for a while and have not defragmented your harddrive before, the first time can take a while. This provides an easy way to provide a small sustainable boost in system performance over time and can generally make a system more efficient, though I’d suggest running Disk Cleanup first.

Memory Management is extremely important in a system with finite space, and there are many ways to go about it. These solutions are some basic ones that can really make a difference in storage space and efficiency.



Sources:

https://www.tutorialspoint.com/operating_system/os_memory_management.htm

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memory_management