[R] 64 Bit R Background Question

[Thomas Colson]

Hi, 

I've collected quite a bit of elevation data (LIDAR elevation points) and am
looking for a suitable platform to do analysis and modeling on it. The data
is sitting in an Oracle database, one table, 200 million rows of x,y, and z.
I'm trying to figure out what hardware resources we need to reserve in order
to run 64 BIT R for this size data. 

Here's my question:
Is the 64 BIT version of R appropriate for this size? Or is attempting to
read all 200 million rows a pipe dream no matter what platform I'm using? 

I've read in the archives that some have gotten 64 BIT R to build "out of
box" on Intel Xeon processors...is there any differences in
compiling/performance between the Intel Xeon architecture vs AMD 64? 

Are there pure physical limitations of 64 BIT R that would make intalling it
on a grid (http://www.ncsu.edu/itd/hpc/Hardware/Hardware.php) a wasted
effort? We have the memory and drive space to do this.

Thanks for any advice


Tom Colson
Center for Earth Observation
North Carolina State University 
Raleigh, NC 27695
(919) 515 3434
(919) 673 8023
tom_colson at ncsu.edu

Online Calendar:
http://www4.ncsu.edu/~tpcolson