Create compressed multi-volume archive of a directory of files and subdirectories

Zip the folder containing files and subdirectories into a large single file

$ zip -rT largefile.zip folder
$ ls
largefile.zip

Create compressed multi-volume archive using rar

$ rar a -m5 -v99m largefile largefile.zip

RAR 4.00 beta 3   Copyright (c) 1993-2010 Alexander Roshal   17 Dec 2010
Shareware version         Type RAR -? for help

Evaluation copy. Please register.

Creating archive largefile.rar

Adding    largefile.zip                                   
Calculating the control sum     

Creating archive largefile.part2.rar

...       largefile.zip                                   
Calculating the control sum     

Creating archive largefile.part3.rar

...       largefile.zip                                   
Calculating the control sum     

Creating archive largefile.part4.rar

...       largefile.zip                                   
Calculating the control sum     

Creating archive largefile.part5.rar

...       largefile.zip                                OK 
Calculating the control sum     
Done
$ ls -la
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser  99M 2011-09-08 13:50 largefile.part1.rar
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser  99M 2011-09-08 13:52 largefile.part2.rar
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser  99M 2011-09-08 13:54 largefile.part3.rar
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser  99M 2011-09-08 13:56 largefile.part4.rar
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser  45M 2011-09-08 13:57 largefile.part5.rar
-rw-r--r--   1 foouser foouser 440M 2011-09-08 13:44 largefile.zip

Restore the large file

$ rar e largefile.part1.rar