Background backup suggestion

As described, such a product can't possibly exist for numerous reasons.  (But there is a work around)

Your system is constantly logging information by appending files; NTFS has file system logging; when you so much as see if a file is there, it updates things like last-timestamp-read. Your system is automatically defragging, so files are touched.  Applications have DLL files that are shared between them, but the O/S doesn't know what applications share the same DLL, it just knows that a particular application uses a particular DLL.

Also what if you touch a file during the sync?   No way are you willing to wait, but if you don't wait, then you'll end up corrupting something or never getting it backed up.

In other words, files are constantly being touched and updated, so how can it discern if you, a human is changing a file vs an automated process?

So best thing I can think of is to use a standard UNIX utility (that has been ported to windows) called rsync.   Rsync can be scripted to look for files on your system that have been changed since such-and-such, or it can be scripted to compare one directory or entire disk drive against another on a remote system (or disk), and then refresh files that have been changed.

Example  rsync -avz  "C:\My Documents" myusername@ftp.repository.com/thenelson

The -z part compresses data to save on bandwidth, but it will decompress at the tail end.
If your ftp server uses solaris zfs then it can be configured to automatically compress and encrypt the entire file system.

I fear no matter what you do, it isn't going to be workable.  Large files like those using email, movies, anything over 1GB will just kill this design, even if you have a high-speed connection like FIOS.

You could write a Robo-FTP script to automatically zip and upload changed files to a remote FTP server but you wouldnt want it watching your system files... you'd specify a folder to watch and have it only send files in that folder and possibly subfolders.

How would I write a Robo-FTP script?   Do you have an example?

if this is only for specific folders, you could use something like unison

CuteFTP - http://www.globalscape.com/products/ftp_clients.aspx?CMP=KNC-Google_CuteFTP&gclid=CNSyx8Cri7ECFQF_hwodFlR2kA

I ended up using  win7's scheduler setting it to interrupt standby and run xcopy copying files from one computer to another.

I have been talking with Dropbox and Google Drive about becoming HIPAA compliant and will use one of them when they do.

Thanks to all.