My plan was when I would shut down the PC, the external hard drives would shut off as

Instead, I put the Mac to sleep, then the computer realizes that the hard drive was not disconnected properly and wakes back up again

I then tried plugging in one of my external hard drives into the master port (this drive shuts off automatically once the PC is shut down) and this still did not shut off the "energy saving ports" even with the dial tried in multiple locations

When my iMac "goes to sleep" it shuts down my external hard drives and when I go back to work the hard drives come back up.

As noted, however, it may be slightly awkward for use in a home office unless your master device and peripherals are set up in a likewise fashion--for example, I don't have the need for my backup hard drive or printer to be on every time my desktop is, so I tend to power them off & on using their individual controls

I have connected my PC, external hard drive, 2 monitors, speakers, USB hub and camera dock to the Smart Strip.

and it turns off the USB hubs, monitor, external hard drives and DVD

Purchased with intention to use with my desktop PC as the control device and external hard drives as switched devices so that external hard drives would be shut down when computer shut down when after-hours backup was completed.

I had 6 hard drives, a printer, monitor, etc which all drew energy.

After adjusting the sensitive down, it controlled my 2 LCD monitors, speaker system, and external hard drive

I tried this method thinking that an individual hard drive would pull less "standby current" as a PC would, and could possibly trigger the device to shut off the other ports

The other we use in my husband's office, where he has several hard drives that attach to his computer

The only peripheral that does not automatically come back on when I turn on my PC is the external hard drive, but I feel that is a small penalty to pay for the savings on both power and heat-generation from the vampire devices.

When I power up the CPU, my monitor, speaker system, three external hard drives all power up at the same time without me having to flip another switch.

Now when he shuts down the computer, the hard drives turn off, too.

And that's even when I use a hard-drive based DVD player (which maintains partial power even when it's "off" as the primary autoswitcher.

have my HTPC connected in the master port, and all of my external hard drives plugged into the "energy saver ports

Now when I shut down the computer the monitor, printer, external DVD, speakers and external hard drive all shut down on their own.

I was hoping that when my Mac goes into sleep mode, all the attached peripherals like the backup hard drive, printer, and speakers would turn off via the power strip