[R] Can we do GLM on 2GB data set with R?

[WILLIE, JILL]

We are wanting to use R instead of/in addition to our existing stats
package because of it's huge assortment of stat functions.  But, we
routinely need to fit GLM models to files that are approximately 2-4GB
(as SQL tables, un-indexed, w/tinyint-sized fields except for the
response & weight variables).  Is this feasible, does anybody know,
given sufficient hardware, using R?  It appears to use a great deal of
memory on the small files I've tested.

I've read the data import, memory.limit, memory.size & general
documentation but can't seem to find a way to tell what the boundaries
are & roughly gauge the needed memory...other than trial & error.  I've
started by testing the data.frame & run out of memory on my PC.  I'm new
to R so please be forgiving if this is a poorly-worded question.

Jill Willie 
Open Seas
Safeco Insurance
jilwil at safeco.com 
206-545-5673