Memory fragmentation

Performance degradation

Memory fragmentation is a kernelprogramming level problem. During real-time computing of applications, fragmentation levels can reach as high as 99%, and may lead to system crashes or other instabilities. This type of system crash can be difficult to avoid, as it is impossible to anticipate the critical rise in levels of memory fragmentation. However, while it may not be possible for a system to continue running all programs in the case of excessive memory fragmentation, a well-designed system should be able to recover from the critical fragmentation condition by moving in some memory blocks used by the system itself to enable consolidation of free memory into fewer, larger blocks, or, in the worst case, by terminating some programs to free their memory and then defragmenting the resulting sum total of free memory. This will at least avoid a true crash in the sense of system failure and allow the system to continue running some programs, save program data, etc.