R holds objects it is using in virtual memory. This help file documents the current design limitations on large objects: these differ between 32-bit and 64-bit builds of R.
Details
Currently R runs on 32- and 64-bit operating systems, and most 64-bit OSes (including Linux, Solaris, Windows and macOS) can run either 32- or 64-bit builds of R. The memory limits depends mainly on the build, but for a 32-bit build of R on Windows they also depend on the underlying OS version. R holds all objects in virtual memory, and there are limits based on the amount of memory that can be used by all objects: There may be limits on the size of the heap and the number of cons cells allowed -- see Memory -- but these are usually not imposed. There is a limit on the (user) address space of a single process such as the R executable. This is system-specific, and can depend on the executable. The environment may impose limitations on the resources available to a single process: Windows' ve
See Also
object.size(a) for the (approximate) size of R object a.