Cobian Backup is a free utility for Windows that can automate, in a simple and effective security copies of a given source (file, folder, media and FTP site) to a particular destination.
The author is Luis Cobian, a Delphi developer who has made available up to version 8 (Black Moon), the source of the program. Too bad that the latest version, the ninth (AMAN), we are the only tracks.

Cobian Backup offers many options, you can choose the type of backup (full, incremental and differential), using compression and encryption (RSA, Blowfish, Rijndael and DES), the planning of the event (once, daily, weekly, hourly, etc..), the exclusion of specific files and folders, the execution of special commands before and after the beginning of the task, but also send the final report to specified e-mail.

The FTP server is backed up in both directions (upload and download) through the SSL protocol, while the inclusion or exclusion of files can I use "masks", which contain the classic wildcard to gather groups files.

Compression (ZIP or 7-Zip) can be spread over multiple files with a specific size, but also on a single file larger than 2 GB, due to Zip64 format. For the protection then, if you do not want to use a strong encryption, may suffice even a simple password.

Another interesting aspect is that Cobian Backup does not need a real act of recovery, given that the copied files do not use any proprietary format, but retain the same form even on the destination, also locked files (locked) by other procedures are not likely to be skipped.

Version 10 (Boletus) is still in alpha stage, but promises greater speed, the redesign of the "masks" of inclusion and exclusion with copies available even in remote (FTP), the unsolicited elevation in Vista and Seven and discontinuation of the entire backup in case of failure of an event.