What does @ mean?

Thanks. Here's why I asked. I bought a new USB disk for Time Machine on an iMac running 10.6.8. The initial backup worked fine, as well as the first few incrementals. Then they started to fail, all the same way. Here's a console log for an attempt this morning:

Code:
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Starting standard backup
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Backing up to: /Volumes/TOSHI/Backups.backupdb
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/TOSHI/Backups.backupdb/imac size:7
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Error: (-50) Creating directory 2012-08-23-104545.inProgress
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Failed to make snapshot container.
8/23/12 10:45:45 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Error: (22) setxattr for key:com.apple.backupd.ModelID path:/Volumes/TOSHI/Backups.backupdb/imac size:7
8/23/12 10:45:50 AM | Aug 23, 2012	com.apple.backupd[3498]	Backup failed with error: 2

Here's what the directory and its contents look like:
Code:
% ls -ld@ .
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root  staff  204 Aug 22 20:14 .
	com.apple.backupd.BackupMachineAddress	 18 
	com.apple.backupd.HostUUID	 37 
	com.apple.backupd.ModelID	  7 

% ls -l@
total 8
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root  staff  204 Aug 22 17:46 2012-08-22-174620
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotNumber	  2 
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotVersion	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotCompletionDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotStartDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotState	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotType	  2 
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root  staff  204 Aug 22 19:14 2012-08-22-191403
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotNumber	  2 
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotVersion	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotCompletionDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotStartDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotState	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotType	  2 
drwxr-xr-x@ 6 root  staff  204 Aug 22 20:13 2012-08-22-201350
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotNumber	  2 
	com.apple.backup.SnapshotVersion	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotCompletionDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotStartDate	 17 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotState	  2 
	com.apple.backupd.SnapshotType	  2 
lrwxr-xr-x  1 root  staff   17 Aug 22 20:13 Latest -> 2012-08-22-201350

No one did anything after the last good backup. What's happening?
 
Some more data on the above. I used Disk Utility to repair the TM volume and then an incremental backup completed normally.

Before I could repair it, I had to unmount it. But it wouldn't eject normally, saying another (unnamed) program was using it. I had to force eject it.
 
Maybe that is a result of using Time Machine - can't make the backup file, and continues to try. That would certainly make the system think that some app is using the drive.
And, repairing the external with Disk Utility is one of the TM fixes that I found in a search.
 
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