Master SQL Primary Key GUID: Best Practices for Unique Identifiers

Michaela Richards Sep 20, 2026

What are the best practices for using a GUID as a primary key ...

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GUIDs may seem to be a natural choice for your primary key - and if you really must, you could probably argue to use it for the PRIMARY KEY of the table. What I'd strongly recommend not to do is use the GUID column as the clustering key , which SQL Server does by default, unless you specifically tell it not to.

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Image result for SQL Keys: Primary, Candidate, Foreign, Alternate, Super Key Explained ...

create table your table (id int indentity (1,1) primary key , col1 varchar (10) ) will automatically create the primary key for you. Check GUID in the T-SQL, don't have it at hand right now.

SQL Server GUID Column with Index Considerations and Identifcation Scripts

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Image result for Understanding SQL Primary Key: A Comprehensive Guide

Problem On some of the SQL Server databases I manage, I noticed that there are tables with GUID columns and the GUID column is defined as the primary key . On checking further, I noticed that these GUID columns also have a unique clustered index on the column. What are the issues with this approach especially when the database grows considerably?

A primary key is a unique identifier for every entry in a table that prevents duplicate values from occurring. So, Instead of using integers as the primary key , you can use GUIDs as the PRIMARY KEY Column of a table which brings in some advantages.

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Best solution to fixing database design with GUID as primary key

I would create a Unique Non Clustered index on the GUID column which was the primary key . The smaller remote 150 databases don't need to know about the new PK on the central SQL Server database - its purely going to be used for organising the data in the database and stop the bad performance and fragmentation.

A walkthrough of performance considerations when using GUID /UUIDs for database Primary Keys , including code optimizations and benchmarks.

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KEYGUID (Transact

KEY_GUID (Transact- SQL ) Because temporary keys are only available in the session in which they are created, no permissions are required to access them. To access a key that is not temporary, the caller requires some permission on the key and must not have been denied VIEW permission on the key .

The GUID is just an alternate key , with a NonClustered index, and is passed in from the application, but only resides in the primary table. All related tables are related via the INT PK.

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Auto generated SQL Server keys uniqueidentifier or IDENTITY

Learn about SQL Server uniqueidentifier and identity values to generate a unique value for for you SQL Server tables.

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Image result for Exemple De Primary Key Sql - Clé Primaire Sql - KYDS
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