paging

     

In computer operating systems that have their main memory ivided into pages, paging (sometimes called swapping) is a transfer of pages between main memory and an auxiliary store, such as hard disk drive. Paging is an important part of virtual memory implementation in most contemporary general-purpose operating systems, allowing them to easily use disk storage for data that does not fit into physical RAM. Paging is usually implemented as a task built into the kernel of the operating system.