diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/DecisionTreeClassifier.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/DecisionTreeClassifier.scala
index 9f60f0896ec52..477ef2e85c2c2 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/DecisionTreeClassifier.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/DecisionTreeClassifier.scala
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.configuration.{Algo => OldAlgo, Strategy => O
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{DecisionTreeModel => OldDecisionTreeModel}
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.Dataset
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 
 /**
@@ -110,13 +111,19 @@ class DecisionTreeClassifier @Since("1.4.0") (
     val oldDataset: RDD[LabeledPoint] = extractLabeledPoints(dataset, numClasses)
     val strategy = getOldStrategy(categoricalFeatures, numClasses)
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(params: _*)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val trees = RandomForest.run(oldDataset, strategy, numTrees = 1, featureSubsetStrategy = "all",
       seed = $(seed), instr = Some(instr), parentUID = Some(uid))
 
     val m = trees.head.asInstanceOf[DecisionTreeClassificationModel]
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/GBTClassifier.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/GBTClassifier.scala
index ade0960f87a0d..25a4e74377028 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/GBTClassifier.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/GBTClassifier.scala
@@ -32,11 +32,12 @@ import org.apache.spark.ml.tree.impl.GradientBoostedTrees
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util._
 import org.apache.spark.ml.util.DefaultParamsReader.Metadata
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.configuration.{Algo => OldAlgo}
-import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.loss.LogLoss
 import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{GradientBoostedTreesModel => OldGBTModel}
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset, Row}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
+
 
 /**
  * Gradient-Boosted Trees (GBTs) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient_boosting)
@@ -165,16 +166,22 @@ class GBTClassifier @Since("1.4.0") (
         s" numClasses=$numClasses, but thresholds has length ${$(thresholds).length}")
     }
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(labelCol, featuresCol, predictionCol, impurity, lossType,
       maxDepth, maxBins, maxIter, maxMemoryInMB, minInfoGain, minInstancesPerNode,
       seed, stepSize, subsamplingRate, cacheNodeIds, checkpointInterval)
     instr.logNumFeatures(numFeatures)
     instr.logNumClasses(numClasses)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val (baseLearners, learnerWeights) = GradientBoostedTrees.run(oldDataset, boostingStrategy,
       $(seed))
     val m = new GBTClassificationModel(uid, baseLearners, learnerWeights, numFeatures)
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/LinearSVC.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/LinearSVC.scala
index 8d556deef2be8..962b5340ecc1d 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/LinearSVC.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/LinearSVC.scala
@@ -38,6 +38,8 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.stat.MultivariateOnlineSummarizer
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{Dataset, Row}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions.{col, lit}
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
+
 
 /** Params for linear SVM Classifier. */
 private[classification] trait LinearSVCParams extends ClassifierParams with HasRegParam
@@ -170,7 +172,10 @@ class LinearSVC @Since("2.2.0") (
           Instance(label, weight, features)
       }
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, instances)
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) instances.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(regParam, maxIter, fitIntercept, tol, standardization, threshold,
       aggregationDepth)
 
@@ -264,6 +269,9 @@ class LinearSVC @Since("2.2.0") (
     }
 
     val model = copyValues(new LinearSVCModel(uid, coefficientVector, interceptVector))
+
+    if (handlePersistence) instances.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(model)
     model
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/RandomForestClassifier.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/RandomForestClassifier.scala
index ab4c235209289..e6cf72cf1b2a4 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/RandomForestClassifier.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/classification/RandomForestClassifier.scala
@@ -33,6 +33,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{RandomForestModel => OldRandomForestMo
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 
 /**
@@ -130,17 +131,23 @@ class RandomForestClassifier @Since("1.4.0") (
     val strategy =
       super.getOldStrategy(categoricalFeatures, numClasses, OldAlgo.Classification, getOldImpurity)
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(labelCol, featuresCol, predictionCol, probabilityCol, rawPredictionCol,
       impurity, numTrees, featureSubsetStrategy, maxDepth, maxBins, maxMemoryInMB, minInfoGain,
       minInstancesPerNode, seed, subsamplingRate, thresholds, cacheNodeIds, checkpointInterval)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val trees = RandomForest
       .run(oldDataset, strategy, getNumTrees, getFeatureSubsetStrategy, getSeed, Some(instr))
       .map(_.asInstanceOf[DecisionTreeClassificationModel])
 
     val numFeatures = oldDataset.first().features.size
     val m = new RandomForestClassificationModel(uid, trees, numFeatures, numClasses)
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/GaussianMixture.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/GaussianMixture.scala
index 5259ee419445f..02c24f25edd52 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/GaussianMixture.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/GaussianMixture.scala
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset, Row, SparkSession}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions.{col, udf}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{IntegerType, StructType}
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 
 /**
@@ -342,7 +343,10 @@ class GaussianMixture @Since("2.0.0") (
 
     val instances: RDD[Vector] = dataset.select(col($(featuresCol))).rdd.map {
       case Row(features: Vector) => features
-    }.cache()
+    }
+
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) instances.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
 
     // Extract the number of features.
     val numFeatures = instances.first().size
@@ -350,7 +354,7 @@ class GaussianMixture @Since("2.0.0") (
       s"than ${GaussianMixture.MAX_NUM_FEATURES} features because the size of the covariance" +
       s" matrix is quadratic in the number of features.")
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, instances)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(featuresCol, predictionCol, probabilityCol, k, maxIter, seed, tol)
     instr.logNumFeatures(numFeatures)
 
@@ -420,6 +424,9 @@ class GaussianMixture @Since("2.0.0") (
     }
 
     val model = copyValues(new GaussianMixtureModel(uid, weights, gaussianDists)).setParent(this)
+
+    if (handlePersistence) instances.unpersist()
+
     val summary = new GaussianMixtureSummary(model.transform(dataset),
       $(predictionCol), $(probabilityCol), $(featuresCol), $(k), logLikelihood)
     model.setSummary(Some(summary))
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/LDA.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/LDA.scala
index 3da29b1c816b1..eda301034b7e0 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/LDA.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/LDA.scala
@@ -44,6 +44,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset, Row, SparkSession}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions.{col, monotonically_increasing_id, udf}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types.StructType
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 import org.apache.spark.util.PeriodicCheckpointer
 import org.apache.spark.util.VersionUtils
 
@@ -909,6 +910,10 @@ class LDA @Since("1.6.0") (
       .setOptimizer(getOldOptimizer)
     // TODO: persist here, or in old LDA?
     val oldData = LDA.getOldDataset(dataset, $(featuresCol))
+
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldData.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val oldModel = oldLDA.run(oldData)
     val newModel = oldModel match {
       case m: OldLocalLDAModel =>
@@ -917,6 +922,8 @@ class LDA @Since("1.6.0") (
         new DistributedLDAModel(uid, m.vocabSize, m, dataset.sparkSession, None)
     }
 
+    if (handlePersistence) oldData.unpersist()
+
     instr.logNumFeatures(newModel.vocabSize)
     val model = copyValues(newModel).setParent(this)
     instr.logSuccess(model)
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/DecisionTreeRegressor.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/DecisionTreeRegressor.scala
index 01c5cc1c7efa9..949f5db6fff97 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/DecisionTreeRegressor.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/DecisionTreeRegressor.scala
@@ -35,6 +35,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{DecisionTreeModel => OldDecisionTreeMo
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 
 /**
@@ -105,13 +106,19 @@ class DecisionTreeRegressor @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") override val uid: S
     val oldDataset: RDD[LabeledPoint] = extractLabeledPoints(dataset)
     val strategy = getOldStrategy(categoricalFeatures)
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(params: _*)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val trees = RandomForest.run(oldDataset, strategy, numTrees = 1, featureSubsetStrategy = "all",
       seed = $(seed), instr = Some(instr), parentUID = Some(uid))
 
     val m = trees.head.asInstanceOf[DecisionTreeRegressionModel]
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GBTRegressor.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GBTRegressor.scala
index 08d175cb94442..9a727fb4f38e7 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GBTRegressor.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GBTRegressor.scala
@@ -36,6 +36,8 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{GradientBoostedTreesModel => OldGBTMod
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
+
 
 /**
  * <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gradient_boosting">Gradient-Boosted Trees (GBTs)</a>
@@ -147,15 +149,21 @@ class GBTRegressor @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") override val uid: String)
     val numFeatures = oldDataset.first().features.size
     val boostingStrategy = super.getOldBoostingStrategy(categoricalFeatures, OldAlgo.Regression)
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(labelCol, featuresCol, predictionCol, impurity, lossType,
       maxDepth, maxBins, maxIter, maxMemoryInMB, minInfoGain, minInstancesPerNode,
       seed, stepSize, subsamplingRate, cacheNodeIds, checkpointInterval)
     instr.logNumFeatures(numFeatures)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val (baseLearners, learnerWeights) = GradientBoostedTrees.run(oldDataset, boostingStrategy,
       $(seed))
     val m = new GBTRegressionModel(uid, baseLearners, learnerWeights, numFeatures)
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GeneralizedLinearRegression.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GeneralizedLinearRegression.scala
index 917a4d238d467..1f0bbd5a3e626 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GeneralizedLinearRegression.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/GeneralizedLinearRegression.scala
@@ -38,6 +38,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{Column, DataFrame, Dataset, Row}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
 import org.apache.spark.sql.types.{DataType, DoubleType, StructType}
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 /**
  * Params for Generalized Linear Regression.
@@ -421,10 +422,17 @@ class GeneralizedLinearRegression @Since("2.0.0") (@Since("2.0.0") override val
       val initialModel = familyAndLink.initialize(instances, $(fitIntercept), $(regParam))
       val optimizer = new IterativelyReweightedLeastSquares(initialModel,
         familyAndLink.reweightFunc, $(fitIntercept), $(regParam), $(maxIter), $(tol))
+
+      val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+      if (handlePersistence) instances.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
       val irlsModel = optimizer.fit(instances)
       val model = copyValues(
         new GeneralizedLinearRegressionModel(uid, irlsModel.coefficients, irlsModel.intercept)
           .setParent(this))
+
+      if (handlePersistence) instances.unpersist()
+
       val trainingSummary = new GeneralizedLinearRegressionTrainingSummary(dataset, model,
         irlsModel.diagInvAtWA.toArray, irlsModel.numIterations, getSolver)
       model.setSummary(Some(trainingSummary))
diff --git a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/RandomForestRegressor.scala b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/RandomForestRegressor.scala
index a58da50fad972..7f597f26fa22d 100644
--- a/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/RandomForestRegressor.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/main/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/regression/RandomForestRegressor.scala
@@ -34,6 +34,7 @@ import org.apache.spark.mllib.tree.model.{RandomForestModel => OldRandomForestMo
 import org.apache.spark.rdd.RDD
 import org.apache.spark.sql.{DataFrame, Dataset}
 import org.apache.spark.sql.functions._
+import org.apache.spark.storage.StorageLevel
 
 
 /**
@@ -121,17 +122,23 @@ class RandomForestRegressor @Since("1.4.0") (@Since("1.4.0") override val uid: S
     val strategy =
       super.getOldStrategy(categoricalFeatures, numClasses = 0, OldAlgo.Regression, getOldImpurity)
 
-    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, oldDataset)
+    val instr = Instrumentation.create(this, dataset)
     instr.logParams(labelCol, featuresCol, predictionCol, impurity, numTrees,
       featureSubsetStrategy, maxDepth, maxBins, maxMemoryInMB, minInfoGain,
       minInstancesPerNode, seed, subsamplingRate, cacheNodeIds, checkpointInterval)
 
+    val handlePersistence = dataset.storageLevel == StorageLevel.NONE
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.persist(StorageLevel.MEMORY_AND_DISK)
+
     val trees = RandomForest
       .run(oldDataset, strategy, getNumTrees, getFeatureSubsetStrategy, getSeed, Some(instr))
       .map(_.asInstanceOf[DecisionTreeRegressionModel])
 
     val numFeatures = oldDataset.first().features.size
     val m = new RandomForestRegressionModel(uid, trees, numFeatures)
+
+    if (handlePersistence) oldDataset.unpersist()
+
     instr.logSuccess(m)
     m
   }
diff --git a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/BisectingKMeansSuite.scala b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/BisectingKMeansSuite.scala
index fa7471fa2d658..1141e119bb0af 100644
--- a/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/BisectingKMeansSuite.scala
+++ b/mllib/src/test/scala/org/apache/spark/ml/clustering/BisectingKMeansSuite.scala
@@ -34,7 +34,9 @@ class BisectingKMeansSuite
   override def beforeAll(): Unit = {
     super.beforeAll()
     dataset = KMeansSuite.generateKMeansData(spark, 50, 3, k)
+    dataset.persist()
     sparseDataset = KMeansSuite.generateSparseData(spark, 10, 1000, 42)
+    sparseDataset.persist()
   }
 
   test("default parameters") {