This is actually a pretty old idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_memory_allocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_memory_allocation The primary bene

This is actually a pretty old idea: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_memory_allocation http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Buddy_memory_allocation The primary benefit of it is that it makes space reclamation more efficient. (At least I think so. Might not be true with modern garbage collectors.)