How can I check mongodb query performance without cache

Question

I have a query that takes too long to finish. I like to do some performance tests but after I check for one time (that takes currently ~30 seconds) the query start to run a lot faster (< 1 second). I assume it has to be with the mongodb caching. Is there a way to disable caching for mongodb or another way I can check the performance?

I'm using mongodb hosted in mongohq. Program with Ruby on Rails 3. Here is the explain:

{"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor start_-1", "nscanned"=>5276, "nscannedObjects"=>5276, "n"=>25, "millis"=>3264, "nYields"=>0, "nChunkSkips"=>0, "isMultiKey"=>false, "indexOnly"=>false, "indexBounds"=>{"start"=>[[{"$maxElement"=>1}, {"$minElement"=>1}]]}, "allPlans"=>[{"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor attendees_count_-1", "indexBounds"=>{"attendees_count"=>[[1.7976931348623157e+308, 1]]}}, {"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor images_count_-1", "indexBounds"=>{"images_count"=>[[1.7976931348623157e+308, 2]]}}, {"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor start_-1", "indexBounds"=>{"start"=>[[{"$maxElement"=>1}, {"$minElement"=>1}]]}}, {"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor start_-1_end_-1", "indexBounds"=>{"start"=>[[{"$maxElement"=>1}, {"$minElement"=>1}]], "end"=>[[{"$maxElement"=>1}, {"$minElement"=>1}]]}}, {"cursor"=>"BtreeCursor attendees._id_1 multi", "indexBounds"=>{"attendees._id"=>[[BSON::ObjectId('4f0b621e94bb688563000007'),BSON::ObjectId('4f0b621e94bb688563000007')], [BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde05236f'), BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde05236f')], [BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052370'), BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052370')], [BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052371'), BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052371')], [BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052372'), BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052372')], [BSON::ObjectId('4f0b647d5a8c00acde052373') ... (lots of Object IDs)]]}}}

Notice that I had to truncate some of the explain because it was too long. Where there is "lots of Object IDs" there were lots of Object IDs (~400).

Thanks all

Answer 1

I guess you can not stop Mongo from preparing the query plan (that's how mongo works). So, Before query stats.. 1. Clear the plan cache of all collections by

>db.colllction_name.getPlanCache().clear()

2. Record the slow queries with Profiler (see mongo docs),
3. work on query to optimize it,
4. clear the cache again, and check the query performance again.