The page size is a parameter that can be chosen by OS.
Page size requires to balance several competing factors to determine the best page size. Therefore as a result, there is no any overall optimum.
There are basically following two factors for a small page size.
- Randomly chose text, data, or stack segment will not fill an integral number of pages. Half of final page will be empty on average and
the extra space in the page is wasted (internal fragmentation) with n segments in the memory and p bytes page size, then np/2 bytes will be
wasted on the internal fragmentation.
- Think a program that consists of eight sequential phases of 4kb each. With 32kb page size, the program must be allocated 32kb all the time.
And with page size of 16kb, the program needs only 16kb. With 4kb page size or less than 4kb page size, the program requires only 4kb at
Generally, a large page size will cause more unused program to be in memory than a small page size.
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