[R] Allocate virtual memory on hard drive

[Prof Brian Ripley]

On 11/03/2013 16:40, jim holtman wrote:
> R runs with data in memory.  What type of system are you running on (32 or

A common misconception.  R uses *virtual* memory for its data: the OS 
decides where to allocate that (RAM, disc, both).

R has no 'memory limit': see ?'Memory-limits' (including limits which 
can be set on Windows, if this is Windows).

A guess: this is Windows and the OP did not read 
http://cran.r-project.org/bin/windows/base/rw-FAQ.html#There-seems-to-be-a-limit-on-the-memory-it-uses_0021

> 64 bit)?  How big is your data; you did not provide much information about
> your problem.  Depending on what you what to 'sort', there might be other
> ways of doing it.  This gets back to my tag line: "Tell me what you want to
> do, not how you want to do it".
>
> On Mon, Mar 11, 2013 at 11:20 AM, Jie <jimmycloud at gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> Dear All,
>>
>> I have a long sequence and want to find the quantile, or sort it first.
>> It seems sort() or quantile() reaches the memory limit.
>> Is there a way to allocate more memoy on SSD for R when startup, so
>> that R can use both RAM and hard drive space?
>> Thank you.
>>
>> Best wishes,
>> Jie
>>
>> ______________________________________________
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>> https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help
>> PLEASE do read the posting guide
>> http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html
>> and provide commented, minimal, self-contained, reproducible code.
>>
>
>
>


-- 
Brian D. Ripley,                  ripley at stats.ox.ac.uk
Professor of Applied Statistics,  http://www.stats.ox.ac.uk/~ripley/
University of Oxford,             Tel:  +44 1865 272861 (self)
1 South Parks Road,                     +44 1865 272866 (PA)
Oxford OX1 3TG, UK                Fax:  +44 1865 272595