Paging vs Segmentation
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**What are the differences between paging and segmentation?**

1. **Paging**

Paging is a memory management scheme that eliminates the need for contiguous allocation of physical memory. The process's address space is divided into fixed-size blocks called pages, while physical memory is divided into fixed-size blocks called frames.
Address translation in paging involves the following steps:

- **Logical Address Space**: The logical address (generated by the CPU) is divided into a page number and a page offset.
- **Page Table Lookup**: The page number is used as an index into the page table to find the corresponding frame number.
- **Physical Address Formation**: The frame number is combined with the page offset to form the physical address in memory.

**Advantages**:  
- Eliminates external fragmentation.  
- Simplifies memory allocation.  
- Supports efficient swapping and virtual memory.  

2. **Segmentation**

Segmentation is a memory management technique where the memory is divided into variable-sized segments based on the logical divisions of a program, such as functions, objects, or data arrays.

Address translation in segmentation involves the following steps:

- **Logical Address Space**: The logical address consists of a segment number and an offset within that segment.
- **Segment Table Lookup**: The segment number is used as an index into the segment table to find the base address of the segment.
- **Physical Address Formation**: The base address is added to the offset to form the physical address in memory.

**Advantages**:  
- Provides logical separation of different parts of a program.  
- Facilitates protection and sharing of segments.  
- Simplifies management of growing data structures.