Lexar has introduced an innovative concept treating M.2 NVMe SSDs like memory cartridges, eliminating the need for USB/Thunderbolt enclosures. The company proposes a system where SSDs, encased in metal jackets rather than full enclosures, slide directly into front-panel M.2 slots wired to the processor or chipset. This approach aims to reduce overhead and streamline storage access in mini PCs and desktops.

The concept was demonstrated with a prototype mini PC from ASUS, featuring a robust 25 mm-wide slot designed for multiple insertions. Lexar also showcased their AI-Grade Gen 5 x4 NVMe SSD, likely based on a DRAMless controller. Despite PCIe not being inherently hot-pluggable like Thunderbolt or USB 3, the company believes this direct connection model offers significant performance advantages for AI workloads.

Driving this innovation is the ability to treat SSDs as part of a 3-tiered memory hierarchy for large language models: GPU memory (L1) with highest bandwidth, system memory with larger capacity but slower speed, and finally NVMe SSDs. Lexar claims this approach can relieve memory footprint by at least 40%, allowing larger AI models to be loaded efficiently without requiring additional system memory upgrades.