Date:         Tue, 11 May 2004 12:58:38 -0700
Reply-To:     Gregory Hildebrandt <greg.hildebrandt@sbcglobal.net>
Sender:       "SPSSX(r) Discussion" <SPSSX-L@LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
From:         Gregory Hildebrandt <greg.hildebrandt@sbcglobal.net>
Subject:      Re: large files with SPSS: how does spss handle data
Comments: To: Manny Straehle <MStraehle@NBME.org>
In-Reply-To:  <855847D6DF61B2409DB29770BE61A11E04A82AD7@exchange2.nbme.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii

Manny,

Dealing with large files is also an issue I face.  As an example, with 1M datapoints, there can be significant problems running Sort.

While the technical aspects are mysterious to me, I did call the SPSS Help desk about the problem.

They suggest:

1.  Set Workspace = Total RAM memory - ,say, 300M for Windows.  As I have 1GB of RAM, I Set Workpace = 600000 (the units are thousands).

2.  Under "File," select "Cache Data" before running the procedure.

3.  Go to Edit >> Options, and determine the location of the temporary directory.  Delete the SPSS files in this directory.

4.  If you are running a Sort command, first do Transform >> Automatic Recode for the String variables, and run the procedure using the Recoded variables.

After doing all this, if I still have problems I reboot the computer.  Frequently, this seems to work best.

Greg Hildebrandt