When I redid my machine, I used the same mentality. I disconnected all drives except the C: during the reload and brought Windows back up, then ran all priority updates, and tweaks on the system to benchmark it and ensure stability. After loading essentials, I connected the other drives and did an initial image with Macrium Reflect (free version). I did a second image after installing the programs I use and verifying build. Those are the only two images performed thus far and reside on a secondary HDD.
The free version of Macrium Reflect will only allow full restores (cannot extract files from the image), which is fine for this use. One thing I did notice when restoring an image to test it was that the C: drive required a reformat first, it seems to have issues with the boot partition unless that has been formatted.