AI engineering glossary · Computing foundations
What is swap space?
Swap space: A region of disk that the operating system uses as overflow when RAM is full, moving rarely used pages out to make room. It prevents crashes from memory shortage but makes the machine very slow if it is used heavily.
Swap space: an example
A laptop running a data-processing script that needs more than its 8 GB RAM starts swapping and becomes sluggish.
Related terms
More Computing foundations terms
Where you learn it
Swap space is part of the AI Engineering Program, which teaches it with notes, a hands-on lab and an exam. The first lesson is free.