In this case,
cinder just is a front-end storage: is a connector from vm client to a back-end storage.
ceph is a back-end storage: where to store data.
If you don't want to use ceph as a back-end storage, there're a lot of candidates like as: glusterfs, nfs, iscsi ...
By default, cinder uses the local-volume like as a back-end storage through iscsi ... you need to change cinder config if you want to use another.
Depends on your purpose and your infrastructure system which you own, select a corresponding candidate.
if you want to build a distributed storage for large scale, i recommend you use ceph.
And for small scale, you can use local disk as a back-end storage..