Add Check Constraint On Varchar Column to enforce no duplicates I have a varchar(max) column where users will populate a pre-given key from another system. I want to enable that the users are forced to enter a unique key which means no duplicate values on that specific column. Should I change the collation or is there some sort of check constraint that I can add?
Ordinarily, you'd just create a unique constraint on that column. But you can't put a unique constraint on a varchar(max) column. That could be close to 2GB per index entry.

In SQL Server, the maximum size of an index key is 900 bytes. I believe SQL Server enforces unique constraints by using a unique index, so I'd expect that limitation to apply to your problem, too.

In any case, I think this is an XY problem.