1. Most reliable? I don't consider any of the consumer drives on the market today as especially reliable, so I would combine 1 and 3 to get two drives of good quality hoping that they don't fail simultaneously.
This could be a LiteOn drive or an LG drive, although I don't have personal experience with LG drives but LG owners seem to like them.
2. LiteOn drive (from personal experience), others mention Samsung drives. A test I saw a while ago had the BenQ DW1670 as the best reader, but it may be hard to find and I don't have personal experience with this drive.
3. See 1.
4. Why not a Plextor PX-760/755 drive with Silent mode?
If you actually want 1+2+3 in the same PC as three separate drives, I would choose different models and/or brands to get maximum flexibility.