Serial Vs Parallel

[GrandNebSmada]

In today's world almost nothing we use uses the parallel type of data transfer, its all serial.  I do understand why this is because its easier to speed up a single connection than many simultaneous connections since all the simultaneous connections have to arrive at the same time and little differences in the data paths make a bigger difference, along with cross talk between the wires. But what if you could make a protocol that allowed the data to not have to arrive at the same time? Would this solve the problem with parallel as a viable way of data transfer in today's world?

[fjdhdhcyfhf]

7 minutes ago, 5Beans6 said:

But what if you could make a protocol that allowed the data to not have to arrive at the same time? Would this solve the problem with parallel as a viable way of data transfer in today's world?

You should spend some time on Wikipedia. There are a ton of protocols that do not require packets be received in order

[Glenwing]

15 minutes ago, 5Beans6 said:

In today's world almost nothing we use uses the parallel type of data transfer, its all serial.  I do understand why this is because its easier to speed up a single connection than many simultaneous connections since all the simultaneous connections have to arrive at the same time and little differences in the data paths make a bigger difference, along with cross talk between the wires. But what if you could make a protocol that allowed the data to not have to arrive at the same time? Would this solve the problem with parallel as a viable way of data transfer in today's world?

I think you're talking about multi-lane serial protocols, which is how most high-speed serial protocols already work today, like PCI Express, DisplayPort, SAS, etc.

[Windows7ge]

2 minutes ago, 5Beans6 said:

In today's world almost nothing we use uses the parallel type of data transfer, its all serial.  I do understand why this is because its easier to speed up a single connection than many simultaneous connections since all the simultaneous connections have to arrive at the same time and little differences in the data paths make a bigger difference, along with cross talk between the wires. But what if you could make a protocol that allowed the data to not have to arrive at the same time? Would this solve the problem with parallel as a viable way of data transfer in today's world?

When data is transferred over a network I believe in both the IPv4 & IPv6 Packet headers contain a number stating which order the packets go in because the data may not be delivered in the order it was sent. This concept I imagine could be adapted to work with alternate protocols or be used in one built from the ground up. I want to say with networking particularly when multiple physical cables are used for a single configuration (Link Aggregation, SMB3.0 (don't quote me on this either), etc.) that data would be sent in more than one simultaneous stream but I'm not 100% sure that is correct.

 

An issue to parallel transmissions is the need for more physical wires. If more data can be pushed through less wires it's looked at as the best option even if adding more wires could theoretically take transfer rates even higher.

 

Nowadays we have copper cable capable of 40Gbit or even a single strand of fiber capable of 100Gbit. So the use of parallel wires has lost use due to increase in efficiency.

[Mira Yurizaki]

23 minutes ago, 5Beans6 said:

But what if you could make a protocol that allowed the data to not have to arrive at the same time? Would this solve the problem with parallel as a viable way of data transfer in today's world?

You can aggregate multiple serial lines together and have data sent over in such a way where there's little overhead to recombine them or what you send is independent of the order in which the data arrives. This is similar to how PCI Express works.

 

For example, if you're building a 200x200 image, you don't necessarily need to send the pixels in order. You could send chunks of pixels with a tag saying where the data starts and how much there is of it.