The File Storage plugin is giving you the possibility to store files in virtually any kind of storage backend. This plugin is wrapping the Gaufrette library in a CakePHP fashion and provides a simple way to use the storage adapters through the StorageManager class.
See this list of included storage adapters.
Storage adapters are an unified interface that allow you to store file data to your local file system, in memory, in a database or into a zip file and remote systems. There is a database table keeping track of what you stored were. You can always write your own adapter or extend and overload existing ones.