Which of the following statements about segmentation is TRUE ?

Concept: Segmentation divides a process’s logical address space into variable-sized, logically meaningful segments (code, data, stack, heap, etc.). Each segment is allocated independently, and the segment table stores a base address and a limit (length) for every segment so the hardware can translate addresses and enforce bounds on every access.

Application: Checking each statement against this model:

• The claim that segments can grow independently: because each segment has its own base/limit entry in the segment table, growing one segment — in place if adjacent space is free, or by relocating it to a larger contiguous block if not — only requires updating that segment's own table entry; no other segment's base or limit needs to change as a result. So segments genuinely can grow independently of each other, without one segment's growth forcing a change to any other segment's mapping.

• The claim that segment tables do not store limit values: a segment-table entry always pairs a base address with a limit; the hardware compares an access offset against that limit to detect out-of-bounds references, so a limit value is a required part of every entry, not something omitted.

• The claim that segments store pages inside them in all systems: pages are the fixed-size units used by paging. A pure segmentation scheme addresses memory as segment + offset with no page structure inside a segment at all; pages appear inside segments only on hardware that layers paging on top of segmentation (a hybrid design), which is not how every system is built.

• The claim that segmentation eliminates external fragmentation completely: because segments are variable-sized contiguous blocks, freeing one leaves a gap sized exactly to that segment; a later segment can reuse the gap only if it fits within that size, so unusable gaps can accumulate over time as segments are allocated and freed — this is external fragmentation, and segmentation does not remove it.

Cross-check: Paging, by contrast, allocates fixed-size frames, which removes external fragmentation at the cost of internal fragmentation — the reverse trade-off from segmentation’s variable-sized blocks. Of the four statements, only the growth-independence claim is consistent with how a segment table and segment allocation actually behave, which is why that statement is the true one.