Creating a schema in TimescaleDB differs from creating it in PostgreSQL, with two key differences: including a time field in unique keys and not having foreign keys within hypertables. The optimal chunk size should fit into ¼ of the available memory to support heavy operational workloads. Creating a separate unit key can speed up query times for certain queries, but not all. Hardware requirements depend on dataset size and memory usage, with recommendations available through Timescale's Slack channel or benchmarking blog posts. Migrating from PostgreSQL (non-hosted) to Timescale Cloud is relatively easy, using tools like pg_dump and psql, and can be done with minimal downtime in the future.