IN vs. JOIN with large rowsets

Question

I\'m wanting to select rows in a table where the primary key is in another table. I\'m not sure if I should use a JOIN or the IN operator in SQL Server 2005. Is there any si

Answer 1

Observe the execution plan for both types and draw your conclusions. Unless the number of records returned by the subquery in the "IN" statement is very small, the IN variant is almost certainly slower.