There is these type of image backups.
Full
Incremental
Differental
You can choose to only do full backups which is the safest but also least efficient use of backup storage. I do backups of my OS drive once a week and like to keep several copies available, so using full each time would not be efficient.
Incremental is like a diff patch on linux, it will only store whats changed from the most recent full or incremental backup, so e.g. if you have a full backup wit h2 incremental's following it, then you need all 3 backups to get the latest backup. However if e.g. the first incremental is deleted by accident, then the original full backup would still work.
Differential is similar to incremental in that it only stores whats changed, however it will always chain from the full backup meaning it is a compromise of both options, so if you had 3 backups, one full and 2 differentials, and the first differential got deleted, then the second differential would still be fine as it doesnt need the first.
I use differentials, and every 4 backups a new full backup is created so I do something like this.
Full -> diff -> diff
Full -> diff -> diff
and so on, I keep 2 full backups on my system at any time so when a third is created the first (and its diff's are deleted).
Incremental should be fine as long as you dont overdo the chaining, so do a new full backup after every 2-3 incrementals.
Macrium reflect is extremely reliable, the feedback on the internet is overwhelmingly positive for this product, so I would think the only way a backup would be corrupt is bad OS configuration or faulty hardware.