Testing speed depends on HDD?

[shadow2720]

Hello,
I´ve recently found out that speed of testing extremely depends on HDD and I really want to know why and if its possible to make some optimalizations on my end or if it is tied to device-farm implementation. Here is what I have and know:

I have: Linux Debian 12 server (kinda bad CPU, 32GB RAM, 250GB system SSD & 1TB HDD) with multiple physical phones connected. Latest Appium & Device Farm plugin.

So I know that Device Farm is using Prisma for DB connections which are made into .cache directory. Now, by default, I have this .cache directory on SSD. However when running tests, the database grows extremely fast - whole system SSD is eaten within few days of testing and after that whole system colapses and its not really easy to recover from that. I´ve disabled saving logs into database as well as session videos (at least I hope so) but it basicaly did not help.
I decided to mount 1TB HDD as a .cache directory. That works, data are stored on HDD. However I found that test execution is 2-3 times slower then with SSD. And even tho I understand that HDD is much slower then SSD, my question is why? Does Device Farm really have to save everything into DB on disk? Wouldnt it be possible to disable saving data into DB on disk or use DB in RAM?

Or are there any optimalizations I can do on my side so the DB will for example clear data older then X days and therefore free some space up?

Thanks everyone!

[saikrishna321]

@shadow2720 There are different capabilities to control these logs. Please check the docs.

We will implement a way to delete them from frontend soon.

[shadow2720]

@saikrishna321 Hello, I´m using df:record_video and df:saveDeviceLogs, both set to false. But the DB still grows really fast. Is there anything else I could have missed?

[sudharsan-selvaraj]

So, is the request to avoid storing any session details, such as logs, screenshots, or videos, for the automation runs?

[shadow2720]

Well, generaly, I´d say the request is about Device Farm & tests not to be dependent on disk as such so the speed would be higher.
But as a temporary solution it´d be useful to somehow disable saving of anything that is not must have for basic functionality

[saikrishna321]

@shadow2720 you can use skipReport:true

[shadow2720]

Thanks, would you mind telling me what does it exactly do? Cause I did not find this capability in your documentation

[saikrishna321]

@shadow2720 this would not create any info into the dashboard report

[shadow2720]

@saikrishna321 I´m not using Dashboard plugin. You store Dashboard report even tho plugin is not installed?

[saikrishna321]

Dashboard project was merged into device farm long back.