Virtual Memory
From Unofficial BOINC Wiki
[edit] General
A concept of having a large and linearly organized memory space that exceeds the computer's actual Physical Memory. The advantages of this is that programs and data sets can be organized in this very large memory space without regard for the actual amount of Physical Memory present within a computer.
So, where do we put all of this stuff that we cannot hold in the Physical Memory? We keep it on a Disk Drive in a special file we call the "swap file" and read and write to that file as needed. Only that portion of the program (the computational algorithm) and the data that we are currently working on has to be present within the Physical Memory. The remainder can be stored on the disk drive and recalled as required.
The Virtual Memory space for most computers is about 4 Gigabytes (that includes your Personal Computer) with the newer generations of computers now looking at terabytes of storage space in the 64-bit computers. And even larger spaces in the up and coming 128-bit processors.
