Thread: Allocating a number of large 3d arrays in C

I'm trying to allocate around 30 3d arrays of size 300*300*300.

I've tried allocating them statically, i.e.:

Code:

float dx[xSize][ySize][zSize];

With this method I get a crash (upon execution) when I allocate the 1st array.

I have better results allocating the arrays dynamically:

Code:

float*** dx ;
dx=malloc(xSize*sizeof *dx );//Allocate 'xSize' pointer-to-pointer of int

for(x=0;x<xSize;x++)
{
dx[ x ] = malloc(ySize* sizeof **dx);//Allocate 'ySize' pointers of int
for(y=0;y<ySize;y++)
{
dx[ x ][ y ]= malloc(zSize* sizeof ***dx);//Allocate 'zSize' ints
}
}

With the above I can allocate around 15 arrays before the execution crashes.

I'm using the Eclipse CDT IDe and the GNU compiler.
I have the program coded in Matlab already but I wanted to code it in C to compare speeds.
Has anyone any experience with working with large datasets in C such as this and could they point me in the right direction?