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Modern DB engines can enforce Unique or PK constraints without indexes. Yes, they perform scans.

Every major RDBMS requires an index for both constraints.

FK constraints however are a pretty common gotcha. You have a table that allows deletes, and every table that has a column pointing to that table gets scanned on each delete operation.

So you have to add an index on that column, or start talking about tombstoning data instead of deleting it, but in which case you may still need the FK index to search out references to an old row to replace with a new one.

An FK also adds the burden of keeping a copy of each related row during the lifespan of a transaction. This means small-but-frequently-updated tables that are joined to a lot can be a source of unexpected headaches.

After checking the docs, you are right, I stand corrected. I was pretty sure Oracle and DB2 don't.

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