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There is a difference in the terminology between a "partition or disk imaging" and "disk cloning." An image of a partition or an entire disk reduces the logical structure and contents to a new file that can be moved or stored on another location and restored to a new location in its original form. Cloning involves directly copying the same items to another hard drive in real time without necessarily passing through an intermediate translation to a new file format. Any program that will image and restore a system partition should be able to "clone" (make a copy that is functionally identical) a drive so long as you have someplace to store and retrieve the image, and the image can be stored for future use. On the other hand true cloning requires you to have both drives connected at the same time and leaves you with two drives that can substitute for each other if properly connected to the machine.

Caa2
Hi,
 I am considering upgrading my Acronis True Image 2013 license to the latest greatest "2017" version, but it seems like all the features that have been added since "2013" are of little or no interest to me.
 
 The prospect of upgrading just to load more bloat has inspired me to consider alternatives. Paragon Backup and Recovery seems like a good candidate.
 
 Paragon offers a Backup and Recovery product as well as a Drive Cloning product. I have just read both manuals and am left with the vague impression that Backup and Recovery has "backup features" as well as drive cloning features while the Drive Cloning product is simplified and dedicated to making images for clones.
 
 With Acronis True Image I have never used the "backup features" and have instead opted for complete system partition clone images.
 
 I am thinking about going with Paragon's Backup and Recovery 16 and doing the same.
 
 Does any one have some experience and thoughts about the Paragon products? 
 
 Thank you.

Or consider saving some bucks and bloat, by using the Windows built-in image utility.  This has been available since Windows 7.  I have used Norton Ghost and Acronis in the past, but I prefer easy and cheap, but effective :-)
 
Backup:
http://www.howtogeek.com/...em-image-in-windows-7/
Restore:
http://www.howtogeek.com/...-from-an-image-backup/
 
Pros:
Free
Saves the image file in a VHD format (can be mounted as a drive letter in Windows Disk Management, for browsing and recovering individual files without a 3rd party software).
https://davescomputertips...system-image-as-a-vhd/
 
Cons:
You will need to do your own image file management (archiving).
 
I believe that it is also possible to schedule image backups if you setup a backup with Windows Backup and Restore.  Select the "let me choose" option and check off "include a system image of drives".  I have never used this as I keep my backup drives offline. I just plug them in and manually start an image when I am ready.
 

Caa2
FWIW, I see that Paragon Backup and Recovery 16 is free as a promotion for the next few weeks.

Well the "free" stuff caught my attention. 
 
I took a look at the website and the manual.  Looks interesting, & seems capable of everything Windows has, with a few extra features thrown in.
 
PC Mag review here: http://www.pcmag.com/arti.e2/0,2817,2413587,00.asp
 
I always use just a full disk/volume image backup.  I gave up on file/folder backups years ago after several files failed to either backup or restore because they were in use.  I also find incremental or differential backups hard to keep track of.
 
With HDD gigabytes cheap these days I find it simpler to stick with full volume images.  Makes it easier to know what you need if you have to restore an image.
 
Might have to download Paragon and check it out. 
 
The main difference that I see with Paragon vs. the native Windows image is the recovery environment needed to restore an image to a failed system.  The Windows image recovery can be run from any Windows recovery disk, or the Windows installation media.  The Paragon image restore must be run by booting from the WinPE recovery media.  Always test your system with the recovery media to ensure you can boot with it and locate the recovery image.
 
In addition, Paragon allows you to accomplish backup, restore, or copying of Windows BitLocker encrypted volumes, but only when they are unlocked. Until that the locked volumes will be recognized in the program’s interface as “Unknown”.
 
 

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Macrium has a bootable (WinPE) disc or flash drive option, too.
 

Caa2
I'll probably ask about Macrium in another thread.
 
Does a typical Windows 10 install have BitLocker encrypted volumes or is Bitlocking the result of specific security measures?
 
Thank you.

Well after reviewing their user guides, it appears that both Macrium Reflect Home v6 (not free - $69.95) and Paragon Backup and Recovery 16 (free promotion until 11/01/2016, then $39.95) work basically the same way. 
 
Each requires the creation of WinPE based recovery media to boot from to perform an offline image recovery. They can also support Windows Bitlocker encrypted drives.
 
I think I may look into testing Paragon as a free alternative to the native Windows 10 image utility.
 
Macrium Free is a stripped down version of the paid Macrium Home edition, but it may offer enough for some users.  Upgrade to Home if you need AES encryption for your backups.
 
I think that the GUI and the user guide are friendlier with Macrium.  The Paragon user guide is minimal, plus additional info on their website and support forum is lacking. But overall it looks functional.
 
And then, Acronis does it all.  Recovery media, AES encryption for backups, disk cloning, cloud backups, good documentation. It's easy to see why Acronis is PC Mag Editor's Choice. But at $49.99, I suppose it should be good
http://www.pcmag.com/arti.e2/0,2817,2411663,00.asp

fireberd
I used to use Acronis.  (about 5 years).  It failed me twice (two different times), with verified backups, trying to do restores.  Even the bootable rescue disc (Linux version) failed to boot/load Acronis properly.  Only the WinPE version would work.  However as it failed me twice, I didn't give it a 3rd chance.  The last Acronis version I had was the 2012 version.
 
At the time (with the 2012 version) the WinPE creation procedure was very clunky and lots of manual work.  Macrium (paid 3 PC license version that I have) had utility to create the WinPE bootable disc that required minimal user input.  Almost all of it, including downloading the WinPE, was automated.  I have both a bootable Macrium (WinPE) CD and a bootable Macrium (WinPE) Flash Drive.
 

Your story reinforces my feeling that the native Windows 10 image utility may be the most dependable, what with all the recent changes from MBR to GUID Partition Table (GPT), and the BIOS changes to UEFI in the Windows boot environment.
 
I used to depend on 3rd party utilities to cover this area, but have tested the Windows features and they just work very well.  Have been using them since Windows 7, and the Windows 10 recovery boot allows access to most of the latest Windows troubleshooting and system restore functions that you will need.
 
I feel that Windows image file formats that allow me to mount the image backups in Windows as drive volumes, and then browse and recover files and folders, may be available longer than 3rd party formats that may go out of business eventually.  Or fail because of some silly incompatibility with Windows.

abacab
 
And then, Acronis does it all.  Recovery media, AES encryption for backups, disk cloning, cloud backups, good documentation. It's easy to see why Acronis is PC Mag Editor's Choice. But at $49.99, I suppose it should be good
http://www.pcmag.com/arti.e2/0,2817,2411663,00.asp

 
You can catch True Image on sale for about half that amount.
Sometimes you can get the year old version for free.
For most folks, the 2015 versions on up will work fine.

Acronis 2010 still works for me on older systems running W10.
 
New machines have 2016.

Seems that it doesn't support clone an image. And I heard Easeus free copy won't allow you to restore computer from a clone image(Until you do so, you will see the alert). And I trust some powerful third-party review like , PCAdvisor's Backup Recovery - AOMEI  it's a good piece of advise.
 
After trying free backup software, I like it , since it provides a complete backup & recovery solution, most importantly it has no ads like other freeware do.

fireberd
Macrium has a bootable (WinPE) disc or flash drive option, too.
 

I ended up on a paid version of Macrium Reflect.  I used ATI for a year and hated using it, and the first time I needed it the restore failed at the 99% point.  I don't like the ATI options for managing disk space and I hate having to dismiss a login box that I never intend to log into.
 
Reflect is really smart about a lot of stuff.  The only thing I don't like compared to ATI is that Reflect doesn't flush the used memory cache when it gets done.  That is the thing I liked most about ATI ... but it wasn't enough.

Get Reflect FREE to try it out.  Then buy the full version once you have that warm, fuzzy feeling