The restriction is that objects are kept in memory so if you have sufficient memory and your OS lets you access it then you should be ok. S-Plus is a commercial package similar to R but stores its objects in files and can handle larger data sets if you run into trouble.
Given that R is free and once downloaded can be installed on Windows in a minute or so (I assume its just as easy on other OSes) just install it and generate some test data and see if you have any problems, e.g. I had no trouble running the following on my PC: n <- 100000 p <- 20 x <- matrix(rnorm(n * p), n) colnames(x) <- letters[1:p] # regress column a against the rest x.lm <- lm(a ~., as.data.frame(x)) plot(x.lm) # click mouse to advance to successive plots summary(x.lm) On 6/13/06, Carl Hauser <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Hi there, > > I'm very new to R and am only in the beginning stages of investigating > it for possible use. A document by John Maindonald at the r-project > website entitled "Using R for Data Analysis and Graphics: Introduction, > Code and Commentary" contains the following paragraph, "The R system may > struggle to handle very large data sets. Depending on available computer > memory, the processing of a data set containing one hundred thousand > observations and perhaps twenty variables may press the limits of what R > can easily handle". This document was written in 2004. > > My questions are: > > Is this still the case? If so, has anyone come up with creative > solutions to mitigate these limitations? If you work with large data > sets in R, what have your experiences been? > > >From what I've seen so far, R seems to have enormous potential and > capabilities. I routinely work with data sets of several hundred > thousand to several million. It would be unfortunate if such potential > and capabilities were not realized because of (effective) data set size > limitations. > > Please tell me it ain't so. > > Thanks for any help or suggestions. > > Carl > > > > [[alternative HTML version deleted]] > > ______________________________________________ > R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list > https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help > PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html > ______________________________________________ R-help@stat.math.ethz.ch mailing list https://stat.ethz.ch/mailman/listinfo/r-help PLEASE do read the posting guide! http://www.R-project.org/posting-guide.html