I have a few external hard drives. I have (and still do) dump my photos and documents onto an external hard drive every so often. About 6 months back, I picked up another WD drive for cheap. I experimented with the included continuous backup software. As expected, it sucked. Then I tried a few others. This one seems to work well for me:
Genie9 (Formerly Genie-soft) Free Timeline | Download Free Backup Software for Windows
I think it is like every 8 hours that it backs up new files. The included WD software puts the drive to sleep when not used for a period of time so its not spinning its life away. This IS NOT an ideal backup setup, but it's better than just doing a manual BU every few months when I remember. Most of my pictures are not that important. 90% are just practice. For special occasions, I also dump the whole 'occasion' onto a dvd and tuck it away.
Cloud storage can be nice, but if you shoot raw, the files are huge and it could take forever to upload a lot.
Back in my early days, I used google's Picasa for editing. I still keep it around for its Gift CD function. It lets you take a batch of photos and create a self-launching slide show cd (windows only, I think). This is great to give to computer challenged family members. The jpgs are also available in a folder on the cd. This is Gift CD is also good for home use for special occasions. My wife will often request pictures from some birthday party, vacation, or whatever from several years back. So I look in the file box and hand her the cd.