Does anybody know exactly what happens within the SQL Server engine when backups are done? Specifically is tempdb used as a 'staging post' to write data to before it is written out to the backup directory?
The reason I ask is that during weekend, full database backups one of the stripe sets in my RAID array (there are 8 in total) is being hit VERY hard. I am trying to identify what is happening, hence the question.

If anyone has any thoughts or suggestions they would be gratefully accepted.
Jonathan