It undoubtedly is a "memory thing".

Try this, if you can: configure a small drive (as small as you can) with the same files and database. Boot up, kill the player (Control^C), and dump out /proc/meminfo and post the contents here.

And also do the same with your huge drives: kill off the player (heh.. it kills itself), and post the contents of /proc/meminfo here.

-ml