What is virtual RAM, why is it necessary for a smartphone, know its advantages and disadvantages

These days, if you go to buy a smartphone, then there is a lot of discussion about terms like Virtual RAM Dynamic RAM Expansion Extended RAM. Although people are generally aware of the term RAM (Random Access Memory) but terms like Virtual RAM or Extended RAM are relatively new.

This is a symbolic file photo of virtual RAM.

new word is being discussed a lot these days – that is virtual RAM. This feature that comes with flagship phones is now visible in budget phones as well. Many phones will come with this feature in the time to come, but do you know how virtual RAM works, how beneficial it can be for you, what will be its effect on performance? Learn about all these...

These days, if you go to buy a smartphone, then there is a lot of discussion about terms like Virtual RAM, Dynamic RAM Expansion, Extended RAM. By the way, people are generally aware of the term RAM (Random Access Memory), but terms like Virtual RAM or Extended RAM are relatively new. To understand the concept of virtual RAM, one has to first understand what is RAM. Smartphone RAM is a volatile memory, which is faster than any other type of storage. When an application is opened on the phone, it is called a process. These processes (multiple apps) are stored in the background on physical RAM. This is the reason that when you open the app, it gets uploaded without any delay. In simple words, virtual RAM is such a feature, Where a part of the phone's internal storage is used as virtual RAM. For example if a phone has 6GB RAM + 128GB storage and expand the virtual RAM to 2GB, then technically you now have 8GB of RAM and about 126GB of internal storage.

How does it workA

s the name suggests, it is virtual RAM, which means it is not physically present in your smartphone. Virtual RAM reserves a portion of the phone's internal storage to store temporary files and is used again when more RAM is needed. RAM is important in most computing devices. It determines how fast or slow the phone or even the PC will work. The lesser the RAM, the slower the performance of the device. When multitasking or opening multiple apps at the same time on a smartphone, a large part of RAM is being used in it. In such a situation, if more RAM is needed, Virtual RAM will send temporary files to this reserve internal storage. In this way more space is available to load more applications in this physical RAM.

By the way, on phones that do not have the facility of virtual RAM and when you get close to the available RAM after opening multiple apps at the same time, Android optimization starts deleting the temporary files related to the apps in the background. This process is called RAM optimization. This will allow you to use new apps, but there's also the downside that when you go back to old apps (which will still be visible on your recent apps screen), they don't restart or restart. That starts where you left it. Expandable virtual RAM solves this problem to an extent. Remember, Virtual RAM does not actually increase the total RAM size on the device.

Is virtual RAM as good as physical RAM?

In terms of performance, physical RAM is always faster than virtual RAM. This is because the speed of RAM is always faster than the internal storage, even it can beat the speed of UFS 3.1, which is one of the fastest internal storage options in our phones today. When we use Expandable Virtual RAM, a lot of data is transferred from RAM to internal storage, then from there back to RAM. However, there is no need to do anything manually for this. The phone itself does this work when more RAM is needed.

But it also has to be understood that this feature is for emergency reserve. It cannot replace RAM. You can also understand that a phone with 8GB dedicated RAM will always perform better than 6GB + 2GB virtual RAM, even if the manufacturer suggests you 6GB+2GB (virtual) = 8GB.

Why this feature is coming in the smartphone: Well, this technology is not very new. Earlier seen in PC, but now smartphone users need more RAM as they are using heavy apps on it. If you see, 4 GB RAM used to be enough till a few years ago, but now it is not so. Since adding more RAM via hardware becomes difficult and costly, companies have started offering virtual RAM at no extra cost. When 4K video recording and AR apps go mainstream, it will help a lot.

Features of Virtual RAM

The special thing about phones that come with virtual RAM is that more RAM will be available at a lower price point. You can get better performance even without spending much on physical RAM. A phone with 6GB+2GB of virtual RAM will not perform as well as a phone with 8GB of RAM, but it can be cheaper. The phone that comes with this feature will offer better RAM management than other phones with similar RAM. This feature can be beneficial for gamers and heavy multitasking, because as soon as there is a shortage of RAM for multitasking, a part of the internal storage will be used as virtual memory.

Flaws

Virtual memory is a software feature that uses free internal storage as temporary RAM. So it will only work if there is additional storage. If your phone is already close to its total internal storage capacity and has already filled up the space allocated for virtual RAM, then the phone will only use the dedicated RAM it already has. Expandable Virtual RAM also means that if you use a third party custom ROM instead of the official firmware on your phone in future, you will not be able to use this feature unless the custom ROM is also with the same feature.

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