I run a similar (though waaaay less popular) site. My mail is stored on disk in a mysql db so I don't have quite the same memory constraints as this.
I had originally created this site naively stashing the uncompressed source straight into the db. For the ~100,000 mails I'd typically retain this would take up anywhere from 800mb to slightly over a gig.
At a recent rails camp, I was in need of a mini project so decided that some sort of compression was in order. Not being quite so clever I just used the readily available Zlib library in ruby.
This took about 30 minutes to implement and a couple of hours to test and debug. An obvious bug (very large emails were causing me to exceed the BLOB size limit and truncating the compressed source) was the main problem there...
I didn't quite reach 90% compression, but my database is now typically around 200-350mb. So about 70-80% compression. So, I didn't reach 90% compression, but I did manage to implement it in about 6 lines of code =)
Can you tell us what the site is? I've once or twice found sites that blocked even mailinator's alternate domains. Having a less well known alternative to mailinator would be nice.
In terms of mailinator being blocked . . . if that's the case, he's probably in the database http://www.block-disposable-email.com (as are my domains). The guy is pretty quick at finding at adding new disposable email domains.
I plan to add a few new domains on every now and then to see if I can at least keep some getting past his filter...
There's also
20minutemail.com - random address, allows reply, forward and download of message
yopmail.com - any address (like Mailanator) and allows download of attachments directly
There are a ton of these available, just depends on your specific needs. I regularly use them for signing up to those sites that need sign-up before access to a file/article/image (e.g. forums).
I've also used them in testing web apps, using Selenium to grab the email address and registering a user and then going back to check the welcome email had arrived.
I had originally created this site naively stashing the uncompressed source straight into the db. For the ~100,000 mails I'd typically retain this would take up anywhere from 800mb to slightly over a gig.
At a recent rails camp, I was in need of a mini project so decided that some sort of compression was in order. Not being quite so clever I just used the readily available Zlib library in ruby.
This took about 30 minutes to implement and a couple of hours to test and debug. An obvious bug (very large emails were causing me to exceed the BLOB size limit and truncating the compressed source) was the main problem there...
I didn't quite reach 90% compression, but my database is now typically around 200-350mb. So about 70-80% compression. So, I didn't reach 90% compression, but I did manage to implement it in about 6 lines of code =)