in computers, what do “wired memory”, “compressed memory” and “Swap” mean? Why is it bad that a computer is using a lot of Swap?
In: Technology
“Compressed memory” is… Memory areas whose contents have been compressed to save some space in RAM.
“Swap” is memory areas that are knocked out of ram and written to the hard drive/SSD when the computer is running out of space in RAM. Think of it like putting something on the table to free up a hand. Reading them back into RAM when there is need for them again takes 30-100x as long as if they were in RAM, so if a lot of your memory is swapped out because you ran out of RAM your PC slows down to “granny’s email rig” tier.
Wired memory is stuff that must never get put on swap. It’s OS internal stuff and such.
Latest Answers