Patent ID: 8055717

Claim:
A storage system for providing web-based electronic mail service comprising: a mail server configured to: communicate with a plurality of client computers coupled to the mail server over the Internet; receive a request for permanent mail storage of an e-mail from a users; and transform original mail data of the e-mail into a permanent storage format; and an external server coupled to the mail server, configured to: provide a storage area for the user, assigned for at least one of a blog service and a personal homepage service; create a permanent mail field and subfields corresponding to fields of the permanent storage format, in the storage area for the user; and store the transformed mail data in the corresponding created permanent mail field and subfields, wherein, in response to a request for retrieving an e-mail stored in the external server, the external server transmits mail data of the requested stored e-mail to the mail server, and the mail server comprises: a data transforming part configured to derive field data from a portion of an e-mail and transform the derived field data into the permanent storage format; a permanent mail transmission part configured to determine whether there is available storage space in the storage area assigned for the at least one of the blog service and the personal homepage service, for storing the e-mail through communication with the external server and transmit the transformed mail data to the external server in response to determining there is available storage space in the storage area; and a permanent mail data request/receipt part configured to request permanent mail list information or permanent mail body information for the user from the external server, in response to a request of the user for retrieving an e-mail stored in the external server and, transmit user ID information and mail ID information to the external server, when requesting permanent mail body information.