Need info on optical drives

hey, first time builder, and i've practically covered everything except optical drives and monitors

Some stuff i need to know about optical drives

1) these are the things u stick your CD's, video games in, right?

2) What is the difference between blue-ray and DVD drives, i know blue-ray is for running blue ray, im assuming they both work the same except blue ray can run blue ray, yes?

3) any difference in performance between DVD drives / blue-ray drives

4) Is there some kind of catogory for SATA drives? Do i need to plug in my SATA Hard drives to my optical drive?

5) i only need one optical drive if im not planning to burning CD's and such, yes?

6) what is the best, "recommended", trustworthy brand for optical drives i should use?

Thank you! lol i really did mean it when i dont know anything about optical drives , after this, ill almost be done completing my computer >:]

No experience with BlueRay drives.

Modern motherboard, get a SATA drive - no more worrying about Master-Slave jumpers, which will make the people in California really happy.

DVD writers, personal choice: first - Samsung, close second - LG, distant third - anything else.

I grabbed a LG GGW-H20L (BluRay burner) for my HTPC. It's mainly used ripping and occasional Blu-ray burning as I edit HDV&AVCHD footage frequently and wanted to have to have the ability to distribute it in HD.
Other than that a BluRay burner just isn't worth the cost atm, much like when DVD burner was first introduced.

If all you want is play/rip BluRay then obviously a BluRay combo drive is a better buy, until BD burner (and BD-R disks) becomes cheap enough which is still a few years away.

I had to buy a new DVD burner recently for one of my new rigs as its mobo didn't support IDE which meant I couldn't use my trustworthy BenQ DW1640.
In the end I settled for Sony AD7200S0 which is a NEC Optiarc 7200 clone. Customizable with Liggy&Dee firmware here.