You observe that a query performs well with a small dataset but degrades quadratically as data grows. Which join type is the likely culprit?

SQL Data Analyst Hard

SQL Data Analyst — Hard

You observe that a query performs well with a small dataset but degrades quadratically as data grows. Which join type is the likely culprit?

Key points

  • Nested Loop Join without an index on the inner table has a quadratic time complexity
  • Hash Join and Merge Join are more efficient join types for larger datasets
  • Index Seek with Bookmark Lookup is not a join type, but a method for retrieving data from an index

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