Following up here.
I can't explain it but my hard drives are no longer getting bricked.
I don't have much time or mental space with a toddler at home. So I resigned myself to reformat this little flash drive every 4 days or so. I was doing this for the months of Nov and december.
It just became a quick thing I could do and it worked even though maybe a day would go by where no new data was being recorded.
So, the holiday came and with the lack of out side activity, I noticed I didn't need to reformat for an extra day, and then another, and so on.
Seriously the only thing I can think that changed was the dvr is now on it's side.
So, I didn't do anything special, yet it all now appears to be working.