For automated and all kinds of other great functions, I love Novastor
It is cheap for what it does and works wonders, plus has all the features anyone should need.
If you just want to do straight copy backups where it just is like copy and pasting the folders to your external HDD, but on a regular timed schedule, i would recommend ezbackitup:
http://www.rdcomp.net/ezbackitup/index.php
It is very simple, free, and also works very well