[R] memory problem on Suse

[Ambrosi Alessandro]

Dear all, I am meeting some problems with  memory allocation. I know it is an old issue, I'm sorry. 
I looked for a solution in the FAQs and manuals, mails, but without finding the working answer. 
I really hope you can help me. 
For instance, if I try to read micorarray data I get:

> mab=ReadAffy(cdfname="hgu133plus2cdf")
Error: cannot allocate vector of size 858.0 Mb
> 

I get similar errors with smaller objects, smaller data sets or other procedures 
("Error: cannot allocate vector of size 123.0 Mb").
I'm running R with Suse 11.1 Linux OS, on two Xeon processors (8 cores), 32 GB RAM.
I suppose I have enough resources to manage these objects and data files....

Any suggestions or hints will be really appreciated!
Many thanks in advance.
Alessandro