Monitor memory usage in R
smallest.sv <- function(){
  A <- matrix(rnorm(1e6), 1e3);
  mysvd <- svd(A);
  return(tail(mysvd$d, 1));
}

system.time(x <- smallest.sv())

Rprof(tf <- "rprof.log", memory.profiling=TRUE)

[your code]

Rprof(NULL)
summaryRprof(tf)