Hard Drive Encryption

[#1]

My Gigabyte motherboard has this:
TPM (Trusted Platform Module) Header
You may connect a TPM (Trusted Platform Module) to this header.

[#2]

So a TPM is a piece of add-on hardware?  As here http://www.amazon.co.uk/90-C1B0AU-00XBN0VZ-Trusted-Platform-Module-Motherboard/dp/B007V9RQLY/ref=sr_... I presume.

[#3]

It could be add-on or integrated depending on the vendor (and the perceived market, I guess - probably less likely to be integrated on consumer-oriented hardware).
Technet article on TPM Management (maybe a little out-of-date).

[#4]

seems more common on laptops https://community.spiceworks.com/topic/398601-listing-of-laptops-that-support-tpm

[#5]

From http://www.theregister.co.uk/2015/12/30/microsoft_hard_drive_encryption_keys/

Quote

You can download your key from here.  If you can't see a key, and you're a Windows user, then your computer doesn't have the hardware – such as a suitable TPM module – to support the storage encryption, so you don't have to worry about any of this.

I suspect that the vast majority of us don't have the hardware to support storage encryption so don't have to worry.