fragmentation

from The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition.

• noun The act or process of breaking into fragments.
• noun The scattering of the fragments of an exploding bomb or other projectile.
• noun Computers The scattering of parts of a file or files throughout a storage device, as when the operating system breaks up the file and fits it into the spaces left vacant by previously deleted files.

from The Century Dictionary.

• noun A breaking up into parts or fragments; specifically, in zoology, a breaking up into parts or joints with become new individuals, as in some Schizomycetes: a form of fission.

from the GNU version of the Collaborative International Dictionary of English.

• noun the act or process of separating something into small pieces or fine particles.

from Wiktionary, Creative Commons Attribution/Share-Alike License.

• noun The act of fragmenting or something fragmented; disintegration.
• noun The process by which fragments of an exploding bomb scatter.
• noun computing The breaking up and dispersal of a file into non-contiguous areas of a disk.
• noun computing The breaking up of a data packet when larger than the transmission unit of a network.

from WordNet 3.0 Copyright 2006 by Princeton University. All rights reserved.

• noun (computer science) the condition of a file that is broken up and stored in many different locations on a magnetic disk
• noun the scattering of bomb fragments after the bomb explodes
• noun separating something into fine particles
• noun the disintegration of social norms governing behavior and thought and social relationships