As you know, individual circumstances affect every decision. I wasn't criticizing your method, but just wanting to point out that there might be another option that doesn't cost that much more for the desired task at hand. Even time changes decisions as a couple years ago, external usb drives were a lot more costly than what you can do today. One option today is to get one of those hard drive adapter cables that allow you to use an old internal drive and plug it into the usb port. I have one just to allow me to mess with my old drives without having to shut down my computer and plug the drive into the motherboard.

Choosing backup software and why is a whole other discussion. My personal preference is backup software that saves in zip format so I can get at the data without installing the backup software on another computer. And, I can do just what you say and move files where I want them.