Based on the recommendations at http://everything2.com/title/Filesystem+performance+tweaking+with+XFS+on+Linux

Format it with log buffers set to 64 megs

sudo mkfs -t xfs -l size=64m /dev/sdd1

and mount it with noatime, nodiratime and 8 log buffers

mount -o noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8

or add this to the /etc/fstab

/dev/sdd1	/mypart 	xfs defaults,noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8 0 0

if it is for a removable device, make sure you add noauto, sync, noexec and nodev to the fstab entry as well

/dev/sdd1	/mypart 	xfs rw,sync,noauto,noexec,nodev,noatime,nodiratime,logbufs=8 0 0