Two iMacs, one external HD

[bamarich]

I use SD to back up our files on my iMac and created a bootable partition. It works like a charm! Thanks!! Now my question...
The wife and I now have quite a few files and photos on her iMac that we would like to back up. If I purchase another license for her iMac, can we accomplish copying only her user files over our network to my external HD? If so, please advise, or point us where to learn how to do it correctly.
Kind Regards,
bamarich

[dnanian]

Hi, bamarich. You can follow the steps in "Backing up over a network" in the User's Guide -- along with the "Backup - user files" script -- to do that, yes. She'd need her own partition to store the image on, of course.

[bamarich]

Just to be clear, I can't just create a folder on the current partition and tell SD to copy those files there?
If that's the case, can I create that partition without having to wipe the whole drive clean?

[dnanian]

No, you can't - to maintain a bootable volume, you really need to maintain its state without extra files, etc (which would get deleted next Smart Update). You can create another partition in some cases with Disk Utility without wiping, and certainly with iPartition.

[bamarich]

Just to provide a bit more info. My ext. HD currently has 2 partitions. One to boot from (smaller partition) and the other for general storage, etc.
What's your best advice given my needs?

[dnanian]

You could store the image in the general storage volume over the network (in a folder, sure). The point is that you can't store it in a direct backup target volume.

My best advice is to always use a real drive, not over a network, for a primary backup. But, if that's inconvenient for some reason, you should be OK doing it over a network...