"error occurred while creating the backup folder" (-50)

Symptoms:
Bare HDD (Hitachi 1TB). When run on a simple cable setup, no issues. Recently got a Thermaltake BlacX dock, which is more convenient. First and more backup of any given session goes fine, then at some point, the error occurs, after which I can't unmount the drive without forcing it. After I force-eject, I can then reconnect the drive and backups will be fine again.
It may, although I'm not sure of this, occur when I leave the machine to sleep with the drive attached.
This implies that something between Time Machine, OSX and the BlacX are unhappy. Repair and reset haven't helped. Thoughts? I can always go back to using the cable, it was just a pain to set up, so I did backups less frequently, which is bad for me.
The Time Machine error is:
Unable to complete backup. An error occurred while creating the backup folder.
Latest successful backup: 10-09-13 at 1:47 PM
Time Machine Buddy says:
Starting standard backup
Backing up to: /Volumes/Time Machine 1/Backups.backupdb
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/Time Machine 1/Backups.backupdb/gwiseman (2) size:13
Error: (-50) Creating directory 2010-09-13-184726.inProgress
Failed to make snapshot container.
Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/Time Machine 1/Backups.backupdb/gwiseman (2) size:13
Backup failed with error: 2
Console after force-eject shows:
10-09-13 11:15:41 PM kernel jnl: disk1s2: close: journal 0x8578e04, is invalid. aborting outstanding transactions

G'day all. Partner has an iMac 21.5 with Intel processor. OSX 10.6.4
Interestingly, we also have the exact same problem with a different brand external hardware RAID 1 as follows:
Welland Terra ME-580J fitted with two Samsung 1.5TB SATAII 3.5" 32M HD154UI drives.
The Welland site [http://www.welland.com.tw/html/2bay/580j.html] info is pretty brief but it DOES show Mac/PC in its brochure.
Connected via USB2.
From new we had to go through the initialisation stuff and had lots of hair pulling moments. Basically the RAID1 drive needed to be partitioned.
As with Geoffrey, TM did an initial full back up, then went OK for a few hours, then TM started giving the error message "error occurred while creating the backup folder".
Additionally any repair attempts via Disk Utility failed because the TM (Raid1 drive) couldn't be unmounted.
ALL apps were shut down leaving only Finder. Still couldn't unmount ext HDD. Kept getting the message that an app may be using the drive, etc.
Forced demount. Unplugged USB, turned power off to Welland and re-arranged the drives to be two independent drives.
Re powered the Welland, re-connected by USB, and there were TWO drives shown as "Time Machine" except one had the TM icon, the other a standard USB icon. This is exactly as I would have expected seeing as RAID1 disks have identical data on each.
RE-partitioned the USB drive to a) remove all data and b) change its name to avoid confusion.
TM now seems happy. I'm NOT happy, however, as this completely negates the whole idea of having back-ups to a RAID1 set-up.
It would be easy to suggest there is a problem within iMac/OS X, as two people having exactly the same problems with completely different hardware is just too much of a co-incidence.
Any thoughts and help would be truly appreciated, as I'm at the end of my limits, here.
With thanks, Ian.
PS please be kind to me, as I haven't gained a lot of Mac knowledge yet!

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