Which version of macos big sur should I install to get best performance and no battery draining.

So you're saying if I update to 11.6.1 i will not have any UI lags, glitches or any heating issues or abnormal battery draining

Nobody can ever say this. There are the possibilities of too many local issues or glitches on your machine, your home network your ISP for anyone to ever guarantee such a thing.

Make a back up.

Update.

If the update causes problems, restore the back up. About 99.99% of the time it won't. But if it does you can revert.

Batteries are considered Consumable Products. Over time it will degrade to a point where it needs to be replaced. The usage is normal as the capacity will go up and down all the time and never stay always at 100%. Apple Batteries are rated for 1000 Full Battery Cycles and / or 80% Capacity before needing Evaluation or replacement.

For additional reading on Battery and Apple Computers this link may help. About battery health management in Mac notebooks and especially for the M1 and Big Sur If battery charging is paused or on hold on your Mac

Depending on the Age of the computer, some aspects from the above links, may or may not apply to your computer.

A feature introduced into Big Sur was to preserve the number of Full Battery Cycles - there was an Algorithm coded into the macOS. It is perfectly Normal for Big Sur to Pause / Suspend charging the battery beyond 80% and hold it at that level. One can nudge / over-ride this by clicking the Battery Icon on Desktop Top Bar and allow charging beyond 80%. From observations, it will Pause / Suspend again once reading 90%. Same procedure to over-ride and will charge to 100%

hasinsadique wrote:

So you're saying if I update to 11.6.1 i will not have any UI lags, glitches or any heating issues or abnormal battery draining.

I do not leave my air on charger alway. Once its charged to 90% i always disconnect it and use it till 30%. I normally use it for browsing the net, watch movies or for development purpose. This gives me almost 2 days of battery backup.

The latest release is always the most optimized & stable release... macOS 11.6.1 not to mention it keeps your security up to date w/ all pending updates.

I would not be trying to second guess this...

Battery software in your M1 manages battery optimization for you...

The rule of thumb is, if you are near the mains leave it plugged in, if you need the portability then run on the battery.

In this way you reduce the cycle count and help extend the working life of your battery—you have an expected cycle count of 1000. I would not recommend running up the cycle count unduly .

Determine battery cycle count for Mac notebooks

https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201585

You should always maintain the currently available point update (v11.6.1) for your current operating system. Big Sur 11.2 was not the performance update that subsequent updates provided. There is no such thing as no battery drain unless you leave your Air on the charger.

What would that achieve exactly? I mean apart from leaving your machine unprotected from the latest security updates and bug fixes? You know, millions of Mac users run fully patched machines with exactly no issues.

I am not saying that.

Every operating system, whether Linux, Windows, or macOS, including macOS 11.6.1, can have UI lags depending on whether you are running a single application workload that requires more RAM than you configured, or a concurrency of applications demanding more resources than are available.

I happen to be running macOS 11.6.1 on an M1 mini with 16 GB RAM. For my workloads, I experience no UI lag.