How does the paging mechanism benefit memory management?

The paging mechanism benefits memory management primarily by eliminating the need for contiguous memory allocation. In traditional memory management systems, programs require a large block of contiguous memory space to execute, which can lead to fragmentation—a situation where free memory is scattered in small blocks, making it difficult to allocate large contiguous segments.

Paging divides the memory into fixed-size units called pages. When a program is executed, its pages can be loaded into any available physical memory frames, rather than needing to find a large single block of memory. This flexibility makes it easier to utilize memory efficiently and reduces fragmentation since processes can be loaded wherever there is free memory space.

By using paging, the operating system can manage memory more effectively, allowing multiple processes to occupy memory without the need for large blocks of contiguous space. This results in better memory utilization, as the system can handle more processes simultaneously, improving overall efficiency and performance.