Does Sql JOIN order affect performance?

Question

I was just tidying up some sql when I came across this query:

SELECT 
        jm.IMEI ,
        jm.MaxSpeedKM ,
              


        

Answer 1

I have a clear example of inner join affecting performance. It is a simple join between two tables. One had 50+ million records, the other has 2,000. If I select from the smaller table and join the larger it takes 5+ minutes.

If I select from the larger table and join the smaller it takes 2 min 30 seconds.

This is with SQL Server 2012.

To me this is counter intuitive since I am using the largest dataset for the initial query.