--- title: "How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System?" description: "How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System?" author: "Kalin" published: 2022-04-04 canonical: https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/96693/how-many-types-of-fragmentation-occur-in-operating-system category: "troubleshooting" tags: ["troubleshooting", "operating systems"] reading_time: 2 minutes --- # How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System? How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System? ## Answers ### Answer by Hitesh Vohra ![How many types of fragmentation occur in Operating System?](https://answers.mindstick.com/questionanswer/ba9e337a-7ede-4bd6-a709-31a3a753c67c/images/7aead568-3fa8-4c71-9f0d-089ae9fcf720.jpeg)\ - In the operating system, there are **three forms of fragmentation**. The following are some of them: - **Internal Disintegration-**When a process is assigned to a memory block, a free space is created in the memory block if the process is smaller than the amount of memory requested. As a result, the memory block's empty area is underused, resulting in internal fragmentation. - When a dynamic memory allocation mechanism allocates some memory but leaves a tiny portion of memory unusable, this is known as **external fragmentation.** If there is too much external fragmentation, the amount of usable [**RAM**](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/50008/what-is-a-good-app-cleaner-or-program-remover) is drastically reduced. The memory space required to complete a request is available, but it is not contiguous. External fragmentation is the term for it. - When a collection of data in memory is divided up into several fragments that are not close together, this is known as **data fragmentation.** It usually happens when you try to put a huge object into storage that has already been fragmented externally. \ **Read More: [What is fragmentation in Operating System?](https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/96692/what-is-fragmentation-in-operating-system)** --- Original Source: https://answers.mindstick.com/qa/96693/how-many-types-of-fragmentation-occur-in-operating-system Copyright © MindStick Software Pvt. Ltd. This Markdown version is provided for developers, AI systems, and offline reading.