I can create .txt files on the ssd using sudo touch so I can write to disk.
No... you're using
sudo... so the
root account can write to the disk. I suspect that you're not running bitcoind as root (and you shouldn't be!) which is why it errors out saying that it can't write the temp file.
Problem seems to be that I cannot change permissions or owners of the files on the drive.
It would appear that it is indeed most likely a permissions issue... but I'm surprised that a
sudo chown and
sudo chgrp won't let you modify the permissions tho?