diff --git a/pageserver/src/walingest.rs b/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
index ce911a519a..6ab8fc4e3f 100644
--- a/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
+++ b/pageserver/src/walingest.rs
@@ -2086,7 +2086,7 @@ mod tests {
     /// the walingest code in a single-threaded executor, and iterate more quickly
     /// without waiting for unrelated steps.
     #[tokio::test]
-    async fn test_ingest_real_wal() -> anyhow::Result<()> {
+    async fn test_ingest_real_wal() {
         use crate::tenant::harness::*;
         use postgres_ffi::waldecoder::WalStreamDecoder;
         use postgres_ffi::WAL_SEGMENT_SIZE;
@@ -2095,24 +2095,37 @@ mod tests {
         // it doesn't create a real checkpoint, and Walingest::new tries to parse
         // the garbage data.
         let pg_version = 15;
-        let (tenant, ctx) = TenantHarness::create("test_ingest_real_wal")?.load().await;
+        let (tenant, ctx) = TenantHarness::create("test_ingest_real_wal")
+            .unwrap()
+            .load()
+            .await;
         let tline = tenant
             .bootstrap_timeline(TIMELINE_ID, pg_version, &ctx)
-            .await?;
+            .await
+            .unwrap();
 
         // Get test data. Steps to reconstruct it, if needed:
         // 1. Run the pgbench python test
         // 2. Take the first wal segment file from safekeeper
-        // 3. Grep sk logs for "restart decoder" to get startpoint
-        // 4. Run just the decoder from this test to get the endpoint.
+        // 3. Compress it using `gzip -c input_file > output_file.gz`
+        // 4. Grep sk logs for "restart decoder" to get startpoint
+        // 5. Run just the decoder from this test to get the endpoint.
         //    It's the last LSN the decoder will output.
-        let path = "test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench";
+        let path = "test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench.gz";
         let startpoint = Lsn::from_hex("14AEC08").unwrap();
         let endpoint = Lsn::from_hex("1FFFF98").unwrap();
 
-        // We fully read this into memory before decoding to get a
-        // more accurate perf profile of the decoder.
-        let bytes = std::fs::read(path)?;
+        // We fully read and decompress this into memory before decoding
+        // to get a more accurate perf profile of the decoder.
+        let bytes = {
+            use std::io::Read;
+            let file_reader = std::fs::File::open(path).unwrap();
+            let buffered_reader = std::io::BufReader::new(file_reader);
+            let mut decoder = flate2::read::GzDecoder::new(buffered_reader);
+            let mut buffer: Vec<u8> = vec![];
+            decoder.read_to_end(&mut buffer).unwrap();
+            buffer
+        };
 
         // TODO start a profiler too
         let started_at = std::time::Instant::now();
@@ -2120,7 +2133,9 @@ mod tests {
         // Initialize walingest
         let xlogoff: usize = startpoint.segment_offset(WAL_SEGMENT_SIZE);
         let mut decoder = WalStreamDecoder::new(startpoint, pg_version);
-        let mut walingest = WalIngest::new(tline.as_ref(), startpoint, &ctx).await?;
+        let mut walingest = WalIngest::new(tline.as_ref(), startpoint, &ctx)
+            .await
+            .unwrap();
         let mut modification = tline.begin_modification(endpoint);
         let mut decoded = DecodedWALRecord::default();
         println!("decoding {} bytes", bytes.len() - xlogoff);
@@ -2129,16 +2144,15 @@ mod tests {
         // that's what happens when we get bytes from safekeepers.
         for chunk in bytes[xlogoff..].chunks(50) {
             decoder.feed_bytes(chunk);
-            while let Some((lsn, recdata)) = decoder.poll_decode()? {
+            while let Some((lsn, recdata)) = decoder.poll_decode().unwrap() {
                 walingest
                     .ingest_record(recdata, lsn, &mut modification, &mut decoded, &ctx)
-                    .await?;
+                    .await
+                    .unwrap();
             }
         }
 
         let duration = started_at.elapsed();
         println!("done in {:?}", duration);
-
-        Ok(())
     }
 }
diff --git a/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench b/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench
deleted file mode 100644
index 71190be5f3..0000000000
Binary files a/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench and /dev/null differ
diff --git a/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench.gz b/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench.gz
new file mode 100644
index 0000000000..29f713ff8b
Binary files /dev/null and b/pageserver/test_data/sk_wal_segment_from_pgbench.gz differ