What is the difference between safe and vault, where both the words refer to a place where to put things you want to keep safe?
As additional question, why does vault seem more frequently used in computer jargon? For example, the Mac OS X has a File vault, and vault is the word used from anti-virus programs to refer to a place where infected files are kept.
Best Answer
A safe connotes something smaller than a vault, and may be movable, while a vault is generally built in-place and would be torn down rather than moved.
The computer jargon use of vault may be due to its connotation of greater security. It is also attractive because it is less common, and is only a noun (in this sense) and thus quicker to interpret, whereas safe can be noun, verb, or adjective (and heavily used in the latter sense in the computer security context).