[R] Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1125522 Kb, Reached total allocation of 510Mb

[Luis Rideau Cruz]

R-help

I'm trying to compute the 'dist' function of a data set consisting of
16975 observations and 5 variables(2 quantitative and 3 categorical).

If I call the function on a subset of the data frame everything works
fine but when I reach above 3000 observations R either crash or gives
the following error message.

Error: cannot allocate vector of size 1125522 Kb
In addition: Warning messages: 
1: NAs introduced by coercion 
2: Reached total allocation of 510Mb: see help(memory.size) 

I have tried 'help(memory.size)' and increase the 'memory.limit' but
without success

Can anyone help?

Thank you in advance