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I’m interested in learning which technique developers prefer to use to enforce uniqueness in SQL Server: UNIQUE CONSTRAINT or UNIQUE INDEX. Given that there is little difference in the physical implementation of each, how do you decide which is best?
Are there reasons other than performance to evaluate the best solution?
Are there database management advantages to one or the other?
This MSDN article comparing the two is for SQL Server 2000: http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/aa224827(SQL.80).aspx
For most purposes, there’s no difference – the constraint is implemented as an index under the covers. And though there’s the ability to disable the constraint, it doesn’t actually work in SQL Server.
It only matters if you want to tweak things like FILLFACTOR, etc for which way you want to implement the unique constraint.
SQL Server 2008+ added
INCLUDEto provide more efficient covering indexes. Filtered indexes = unique constraint over a subset of rows/ignore multiple null etc.