[R] Once again: Error: cannot allocate vector of size

[Werner W.]

Hi,

I have browsed the help list and looked at the FAQ but I don't find conclusive evidence if this is normal or I am doing something wrong. 
I am running a lm() on a data.frame with 27136 observations of 6 variables (3 num and 3 factor).
After a while R throws this:

> lm(log(y) ~ log(a) + log(b) + c + d + e, data=reg.data , na.action=na.exclude)
Error: cannot allocate vector of size 203.7 MB

This is a Windows XP 32 bit machine with 4 GB in it so that theoretically, R should be able to claim close to 2 GB. 
This is the gc() after the regression:
          used (Mb) gc trigger  (Mb)  max used   (Mb)
Ncells  272299  7.3     875833  23.4   1368491   36.6
Vcells 4526037 34.6  116536251 889.2 145524997 1110.3

> memory.size(max=T)
[1] 1230.25
> memory.size(max=F)
[1] 47.89
> 

Looking at memory.size, R should be easily able to allocate that space, shouldn't it?

Many thanks for any hints!

--Werner

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