[R] Matrix Size

[paul s]

hi -

i just started using R as i am trying to figure out how perform a linear 
regression on a huge matrix.

i am sure this topic has passed through the email list before but could 
not find anything in the archives.

i have a matrix that is 2,000,000 x 170,000 the values right now are 
arbitray.

i try to allocate this on a x86_64 machine with 16G of ram and i get the 
following:

 > x <- matrix(0,2000000,170000);
Error in matrix(0, 2e+06, 170000) : too many elements specified
 >

is R capable of handling data of this size? am i doing it wrong?

cheers
paul