In addition to the responsibility of managing processes, the operating system must efficiently manage the primary memory of the computer. The part of the operating system which handles this responsibility is called the memory manager. Since every process must have some amount of primary memory in order to execute, the performance of the memory manager is crucial to the performance of the entire system. Nutt [1997] explains: "The memory manager is responsible for allocating primary memory to processes and for assisting the programmer in loading and storing the contents of the primary memory. Managing the sharing of primary memory and minimizing memory access time are the basic goals of the memory manager."

The real challenge of efficiently managing memory is seen in the case of a system which has multiple processes running at the same time. Since primary memory can be space-multiplexed, the memory manager can allocate a portion of primary memory to each process for its own use. However, the memory manager must keep track of which processes are running in which memory locations, and it must also determine how to allocate and deallocate available memory when new processes are created and when old processes complete execution. While various different strategies are used to allocate space to processes competing for memory, three of the most popular are Best fit, Worst fit, and First fit. Each of these strategies are described below [Nutt 1997]:

• Best fit: The allocator places a process in the smallest block of unallocated memory in which it will fit. For example, suppose a process requests 12KB of memory and the memory manager currently has a list of unallocated blocks of 6KB, 14KB, 19KB, 11KB, and 13KB blocks. The best-fit strategy will allocate 12KB of the 13KB block to the process.
  
  
• Worst fit: The memory manager places a process in the largest block of unallocated memory available. The idea is that this placement will create the largest hold after the allocations, thus increasing the possibility that, compared to best fit, another process can use the remaining space. Using the same example as above, worst fit will allocate 12KB of the 19KB block to the process, leaving a 7KB block for future use.
  
  
• First fit: There may be many holes in the memory, so the operating system, to reduce the amount of time it spends analyzing the available spaces, begins at the start of primary memory and allocates memory from the first hole it encounters large enough to satisfy the request. Using the same example as above, first fit will allocate 12KB of the 14KB block to the process.

Primary Memory	Best fit	Worst fit	First fit

Notice in the diagram above that the Best fit and First fit strategies both leave a tiny segment of memory unallocated just beyond the new process. Since the amount of memory is small, it is not likely that any new processes can be loaded here. This condition of splitting primary memory into segments as the memory is allocated and deallocated is known as fragmentation. The Worst fit strategy attempts to reduce the problem of fragmentation by allocating the largest fragments to new processes. Thus, a larger amount of space will be left as seen in the diagram above.

The following applet [Gokey 1997] simulates the Best fit, Worst fit, and First fit strategies for memory allocation. Click the button below to launch the applet in a new browser window.

Applet courtesy of Chris Gokey, Bowie State University

References

• Gokey, C. (1997), "Fragmentation Example," http://asia.cs.bowiestate.edu/~cgokey/fragment/example.html.
• Nutt, G. (1997), Operating Systems: A Modern Perspective, First Edition, Addison-Wesley, Reading, MA.