Question

This is a test senario, made with temporary tables to illustrate the problem.
Pretend table @userdata has index on userid
and table @users has index on id

Why is the first select unable to use index, I assumed it would perform better in 1 subselect than in 2 subselects?

Version – Microsoft SQL Server 2008 R2 (RTM)
Compatibility level – SQL Server 2000.

-- test tables
DECLARE @userdata TABLE(info VARCHAR(50), userid INT)
DECLARE @users    TABLE(id INT, username VARCHAR(20), superuser BIT)

-- test data
INSERT @users    VALUES(1, 'superuser', 1)
INSERT @users    VALUES(2, 'testuser1', 0)
INSERT @users    VALUES(3, 'testuser2', 0)
INSERT @userdata VALUES('secret information', 1)
INSERT @userdata VALUES('testuser1''s data', 2)
INSERT @userdata VALUES('testuser2''s data', 3)
INSERT @userdata VALUES('testuser2''s data',3)

DECLARE @username VARCHAR(50)
SET @username = 'superuser'
--SET @username = 'testuser1'


--The superuser can read all data
--The testusers can only read own data

-- This sql can't use indexes and is very slow
SELECT *
FROM @userdata d
WHERE EXISTS 
(SELECT 1 FROM @users u
WHERE u.username = @username AND u.superuser = 1 OR 
u.id = d.userid AND u.username = @username)

-- This sql uses indexes and performs well
SELECT *
FROM @userdata d
WHERE EXISTS 
(SELECT 1 FROM @users u
WHERE u.username = @username AND u.superuser = 1)
OR EXISTS (SELECT 1 FROM @users u
WHERE u.ID = d.userid 
AND u.username = @username)

Answer 1

I think that or can cause some trouble for the query analyzer to come up with a good query plan.
This is not really an answer to your question but an alternative way of doing this query. Apart from the index you already have I would suggest an index on @users.username.

if exists(select * from @users where username = @username and superuser = 1)
begin
  select *
  from @userdata
end
else
begin
  select d.*
  from @userdata as d
    inner join @users as u
      on d.userid = u.id
  where u.username = @username
end