Files on a file system can be fragmented meaning they're split into several parts that are scattered all over hard disk. This usually means that reading these files is much slower because disk heads need to seek individual parts before reading them.

There are tools to defragment files but I wonder what they do?

1. do they make files continuous or
2. do they make files contiguous?

English is not my native language that's why I'm having problems distinguishing between the two. To me the first one seems more appropriate, but who am I to judge...

Files on a file system can be fragmented meaning they're split into several parts that are scattered all over hard disk. This usually means that reading these files is much slower because disk heads need to seek individual parts before reading them.

There are tools to defragment files, but I wonder what they do.

1. do they make files continuous or
2. do they make files contiguous?

English is not my native language. That's why I'm having problems distinguishing between the two. To me the first one seems more appropriate, but who am I to judge...