Deleting MANUALLY the TM directory on my NV+: big mistake?

SOLVED! I followed the suggestion of mdgm by doing an OS Re-Install (with a clip, depress the RESET button - located in the back, at the left of the USB port - Power on, and holding it 5 seconds). I made sure the Time Machine feature was disable first. And the OS Re-Install kept everything except the Admin password (back to Netgear1). And when I re-enabled Time Machine backup, it (re)created the .timemachine directory. GREAT! And I'm presently (re)enjoying the Time Machine backup feature from my MBP (MacBook Pro).

For your info, to make sure I don't loose anything, I first made a backup of my Netgear NV+ (about 1.6TB) to a Synology DS211+. I tried many backup protocol over my 1GB network, and rsync (running on the NV+) was way to slow (less than 1MB/s). The best way I found was using the Destination "Remote: Windows/NAS (timestamp)" method, with which I succeeded to get around 6-8 MB/s: it took me 78 hours last week-end :-)

Thank you, mdgm, for your advice that I kept preciously all those last months 'til last week. -- Jean.