Probably you use a 64bit system, do you? In 32bit, the size of a single object is very limited, afaik to 512MB - even if you have much larger RAM.

I worked with matrices of similar size (>1GB). First you might change data format. Working on brain imaging data, sometimes I could work with 8bit files or at least with single precision instead of double. Check the format with "class (object)".

Also check "help memory", this gives some basic information and advice.

And then you might change your script - remember that accessing a 3GB array will take some time, if you do thousands of operations, you maybe better access subsets of your data. Sometimes you don´t need the whole data set available in your RAM or mathematical workarounds exist.

thank you

If you don't need to post-process all the matrice at the same time, you could also store the third dimension in cell.

It depends on you RAM. You can set the preferences option avail;able in matlab. Also next thing is try to use sparse if it contains some non-zeros values populated in the matrix.

useful

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/30601410/matlab-problems-with-large-arrays

http://jmdvinodjmd.blogspot.com/2017/04/matlab-error-requested-array-exceeds.html

It's really easy. First, you should allow Matlab to use virtual RAM. Preferences>>Workspace>> Matlab array size limit (check box off.) Finally, right click on my computer>>properties>>Advance system setting>>Advanced Tab>>Setting>>Advanced>>Virtual memory(change...)>>Automatically manage paging file size for all drives (check box off)>> set it..