Virtual Memory refers to your computer's swapping of data currently in use between what types of memory?

Answer 1

We load our computers with so much runtime JUNK that RAM (Random Access Memory) can quickly be used up. All of the little applications that we think are cute, special or "OMG, I just CAN'T live without it", take up memory... but most of those little applications aren't really active at any specific point in time.

So:

the operating system determines what processes aren't currently active, "swaps" them out to a special section of disk that has become known as "virtual memory", allowing that memory space to be freed for something that actually needs to run... NOW.

Virtual means, "sort of but not really", so virtual memory acts like memory... sort of, but it's not really memory.

Disk swapping (that's what happens when the computer gets busy moving memory out to disk and moving "VIRTUAL MEMORY" back into memory) takes quite a bit of computer overhead and is responsible for slow running computers. Many people think their computers are old and worn out because they are running slow, but in reality, they've just accumulated a lot of junk that's running in background, and that junk holds onto memory, forcing more disk swapping (caching) that results in slower running computers.

There are two solutions to the problem:

1. Get more RAM (Random Access Memory) that fits and will run in your computer.

2. Get rid of some of the junk and useless programs that are loaded on your computer. I once worked on a lady's computer that had 36 copies of some spyware and each copy was reporting back to "the mother-ship". All that memory overhead and network communication brought the computer to a halt. It took her over 5 minutes to load a page. After I cleared that junk off her computer, everything ran like new.