Calibre settings (migrating from Kobo to Kindle Paperwhite)

Not sure if this is the correct place to post this but I've decided to transfer from Kobo to a Kindle after being very dissatisfied with my Glo HD.

I've installed Kobo Utilities and plugboards on Calibre so that took care of all the metadata, covers, and series names/number, etc. on my Kobo devices.

I want to do the same thing on my soon to arrive Paperwhite and I have no idea what to do. Basically, my concern is for my books on my Paperwhite to be complete with covers and the series names, and I don't know if I need to install a plugin for that (like a Kindle equivalent of Kobo Utilities plugin) or if the plugboard tutorial I found will take care of series numbering and simply transferring via cable from Calibre to Paperwhite will also transfer the book covers.

With Kobo, I connect the device, transfer the books, eject, and reconnect to finally transfer the metadata and the covers.

Also, is there a way to mark books as 'read', 'reading', or 'unread' in Calibre and then sync it to the Paperwhite so that when I finally transfer my books to the device, I don't have to manually mark the reading status of books individually?

Thanks! :)