You may have come across some older threads. This is no longer the case since we have updated my.hubitat.com to enable users to transfer subscriptions from one hub to another. See this thread for more details: NEW! Transfer active subscription(s) from one hub to another
You can subscribe an old hub, perform a cloud backup that you'd migrate to the a new hub, then transfer the subscription to the new hub, afterwards.
But best of all, one time migration from an old hub to a C-8 hub comes free and doesn't require Hub Protect.
A one time cloud backup is enabled by default on every hub, but you can only use one cloud backup from one hub to migrate to a C8. The C8 hub cannot accommodate merging different cloud backups from more than one hub.
No, the migration process is a replica of the old hub with the bad and the good included. If the Z-Wave network on the old hub has issues, likely those issues will follow you on the new hub, unless the current issues are related to range. In that case, the new C8 hub with its external antennas may be able to perform better.
As for adding devices you can do that once your migration is completed. You can add more mains power devicess (repeaters) to strengthen the mesh. The hub will rearrange its devices on its own. You can perform a Z-Wave Repair to speed up that process, but repair is not required.
