I need to make backups of a variety of files, ranging from code files to pictures and music.
I intend to backup to a USB stick, and for security/data integrity I want to only backup manually. The USB stick will be unplugged when not being actively backed up to/restored from. This means backup software which relies on a push model - watching a set of folders and automatically backing up every X days - is out.
Because I'm just backing up to a USB, I don't need encryption, cloud access, or network access.
Filters are important to me, as a lot of my code files are in project folders with files I don't want to copy (built executables, object files, etc.) Being able to manually choose what's included is also important - some of my files are in separate folders, so anything that copies just a single folder isn't likely to work. Hand-in-hand with filters and manual file/directory selection, the ability to look at what I'm actually backing up before I do it would be awesome.
Backup to zip/7zip would be nice. Backup to any compressed non-proprietary format is acceptable. Straight folder synchronization is not okay. Backup to a proprietary format only the backup software can read/write is not okay.
Being able to choose complete vs incremental backups would be nice. I anticipate making full backups of my code files for data integrity, but only needing incremental backups of my media as that doesn't change much (and is prohibitively large to full-backup every week). Tying in with incremental backups and general data integrity, auto-naming of backups would be useful.
Ideally, the software would be free. I would reluctantly accept a commercial program if no freeware options are presented, but my budget for a commercial option is only around $30 or so.
Toucan comes very close to what I need, but it's a little on the glitchy side and I had to abandon it when it choked on a multiple-folder backup. WinDataReflector is also very close to perfect, but the lack of incremental backup is painful for my media backups.
autorun.inf
to achieve your goal – so as soon as the stick gets mounted your backup software would be started?