Trouble with Time Machine backup of my MacBook Pro (2018, 2.3 GHz Intel i5) and external drive in Big Sur 11.6.2.

tccroc wrote:

I recently updated my MacBook Pro (2018, 2.3 GHz Intel i5) to Big Sur 11.6.2, and since doing so have had a few problems running Time Machine backups to my external NAS drive. Previous to this, I had been backing up both the Mac and an external music drive successfully via Time Machine. Now, the backups get hung at 100+ GB of roughly 800 GB. The external drive is Mac OS Extended (Journaled), but the NAS drive is APFS (Case-sensitive). Does that matter?

A backup up was underway, and I seemed to be able to see the external Media drive in Time Machine backups, but then the backup stopped and now tells me the latest backup was December 29 at 7:35, which is a day and a half ago (though backups have been trying to complete every day since then).

A day or so ago, I found that my computer was not recognizing the external drive. After reading some advice, I used disk utility to run disk first aid on the external drive. That seems to have worked, so now I looked to run a backup, but keep finding the process gets hung.

Advice?

Trouble Shooting Time Machine

https://support.apple.com/guide/mac-help/time-machine-troubleshooting-mh15653/mac

Welcome to the Apple Support Communities.

I would not recommend using a NAS for Time Machine due to the unreliable nature of them. Rather, use an external hard drive. Here’s a few excellent ones sold by Apple: 

• G-Technology 4TB G-DRIVE mobile USB-C Portable Hard Drive - Apple 
• LaCie Mobile Drive 4TB External Hard Drive USB-C - Apple
• LaCie 4TB Rugged USB-C Portable Hard Drive - Apple

You can then follow the steps in this Apple Support article to setup your Time Machine backup: Back up your Mac with Time Machine - Apple Support. Also, moving forward, I recommend that you use iCloud in addition to Time Machine to sync all your files and photos to all your Apple devices. Although iCloud is not a "true" backup service, iCloud can also act as an emergency off-site backup, but this is why iCloud should be used in addition to Time Machine. Here are some resources on setting up iCloud for Mac:

• Upgrade to iCloud+ - Apple Support
• Set up iCloud Drive - Apple Support
• Add your Desktop and Documents files to iCloud Drive - Apple Support
• Set up and use iCloud Photos - Apple Support

Jack